20569	----	[Illustration: She stood up serene but heroic] DULCIBEL A Tale of Old Salem BY HENRY PETERSON Author of "Pemberton, or One Hundred Years Ago" Illustrations by HOWARD PYLE PHILADELPHIA The John C. Winston Co. 1907 Copyright 1907 BY Walter Peterson. Contents. Chapter. Page. I DULCIBEL BURTON 1 II IN WHICH SOME NECESSARY INFORMATION IS GIVEN 12 III THE CIRCLE IN THE MINISTER'S HOUSE 17 IV SATAN'S ESPECIAL GRUDGE AGAINST OUR PURITAN FATHERS 22 V LEAH HERRICK'S POSITION AND FEELINGS 24 VI A DISORDERLY SCENE IN CHURCH 27 VII A CONVERSATION WITH DULCIBEL 32 VIII AN EXAMINATION OF REPUTED WITCHES 47 IX ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY MORE ALLEGED WITCHES 54 X BRIDGET BISHOP CONDEMNED TO DIE 59 XI EXAMINATION OF REBECCA NURSE 64 XII BURN ME OR HANG ME, I WILL STAND IN THE TRUTH OF CHRIST 73 XIII DULCIBEL IN DANGER 80 XIV BAD NEWS 91 XV THE ARREST OF DULCIBEL AND ANTIPAS 94 XVI DULCIBEL IN PRISON 102 XVII DULCIBEL BEFORE THE MAGISTRATES 107 XVIII WELL, WHAT NOW? 123 XIX ANTIPAS WORKS A MIRACLE 128 XX MASTER RAYMOND GOES TO BOSTON 136 XXI A NIGHT INTERVIEW 139 XXII THE REVEREND MASTER PARRIS EXORCISES "LITTLE WITCH" 149 XXIII MASTER RAYMOND ALSO COMPLAINS OF AN "EVIL HAND" 162 XXIV MASTER RAYMOND'S LITTLE PLAN BLOCKED 166 XXV CAPTAIN ALDEN BEFORE THE MAGISTRATES 172 XXVI CONSIDERING NEW PLANS 180 XXVII THE DISSIMULATION OF MASTER RAYMOND 188 XXVIII THE CRUEL DOINGS OF THE SPECIAL COURT 192 XXIX DULCIBEL'S LIFE IN PRISON 199 XXX EIGHT LEGAL MURDERS ON WITCH HILL 205 XXXI A NEW PLAN OF ESCAPE 214 XXXII WHY THE PLAN FAILED 221 XXXIII MISTRESS ANN PUTNAM'S FAIR WARNING 230 XXXIV MASTER RAYMOND GOES AGAIN TO BOSTON 237 XXXV CAPTAIN TOLLEY AND THE STORM KING 244 XXXVI SIR WILLIAM PHIPS AND LADY MARY 252 XXXVII THE FIRST RATTLE OF THE RATTLESNAKE 262 XXXVIII CONFLICTING CURRENTS IN BOSTON 269 XXXIX THE RATTLESNAKE MAKES A SPRING 273 XL AN INTERVIEW WITH LADY MARY 280 XLI MASTER RAYMOND IS ARRESTED FOR WITCHCRAFT 287 XLII MASTER RAYMOND ASTONISHES THE MAGISTRATES 293 XLIII WHY THOMAS PUTNAM WENT TO IPSWICH 303 XLIV HOW MASTER JOSEPH CIRCUMVENTED MISTRESS ANN 309 XLV THE TWO PLOTTERS CONGRATULATE EACH OTHER 330 XLVI MISTRESS ANN'S OPINION OF THE MATTER 336 XLVII MASTER RAYMOND VISITS LADY MARY 343 XLVIII CAPTAIN TOLLEY'S PROPOSITIONS 351 XLIX MASTER RAYMOND CONFOUNDS MASTER COTTON MATHER 355 L BRINGING AFFAIRS TO A CRISIS 366 LI LADY MARY'S COUP D'ETAT 371 LII AN UNWILLING PARSON 385 LIII THE WEDDING TRIP AND WHERE THEN 394 LIV SOME CONCLUDING REMARKS 397 =Illustrations.= Page. STOOD UP SERENE BUT HEROIC FRONTISPIECE. "THE LORD KNOWS THAT I HAVEN'T HURT THEM" 68 MARCHED FROM JAIL FOR THE LAST TIME 208 CHAPTER I. Dulcibel Burton. In the afternoon of a sunny Autumn day, nearly two hundred years ago, a young man was walking along one of the newly opened roads which led into Salem village, or what is now called Danvers Centre, in the then Province of Massachusetts Bay. The town of Salem, that which is now the widely known city of that name, lay between four and five miles to the southeast, on a tongue of land formed by two inlets of the sea, called now as then North and South Rivers. Next to Plymouth it is the oldest town in New England, having been first settled in 1626. Not till three years after were Boston and Charlestown commenced by the arrival of eleven ships from England. It is a significant fact, as showing the hardships to which the early settlers were exposed, that of the fifteen hundred persons composing this Boston expedition, two hundred died during the first winter. Salem has also the honor of establishing the first New England church organization, in 1629, with the Reverend Francis Higginson as its pastor. Salem village was an adjunct of Salem, the town taking in the adjacent lands for the purpose of tillage to a distance of six miles from the meeting-house. But in the progress of settlement, Salem village also became entitled to a church of its own; and it had one regularly established at the date of our story, with the Reverend Samuel Parris as presiding elder or minister. There had been many bickerings and disputes before a minister could be found acceptable to all in Salem village. And the present minister was by no means a universal favorite. The principal point of contention on his part was the parsonage and its adjacent two acres of ground. Master Parris claimed that the church had voted him a free gift of these; while his opponents not only denied that it had been done, but that it lawfully could be done. This latter view was undoubtedly correct; for the parsonage land was a gift to the church, for the perpetual use of its pastor, whosoever he might be. But Master Parris would not listen to reason on this subject, and was not inclined to look kindly upon the men who steadfastly opposed him. The inhabitants of Salem village were a goodly as well as godly people, but owing to these church differences about their ministers, as well as other disputes and lawsuits relative to the bounds of their respective properties, there was no little amount of ill feeling among them. Small causes in a village are just as effective as larger ones in a nation, in producing discord and strife; and the Puritans as a people were distinguished by all that determination to insist upon their rights, and that scorn of compromising difficulties, which men of earnest and honest but narrow natures have manifested in all ages of the world. Selfishness and uncharitableness are never so dangerous as when they assume the character of a conscientious devotion to the just and the true. But all this time the young man has been walking almost due north from the meeting house in Salem village. The road was not what would be called a good one in these days, for it was not much more than a bridle-path; the riding being generally at that time on horseback. But it was not the rather broken and uneven condition of the path which caused the frown on the young pedestrian's face, or the irritability shown by the sharp slashes of the maple switch in his hand upon the aspiring weeds along the roadside. "If ever mortal man was so bothered," he muttered at last, coming to a stop. "Of course she is the best match, the other is below me, and has a spice of Satan in her; but then she makes the blood stir in a man. Ha!" This exclamation came as he lifted his eyes from the ground, and gazed up the road before him. There, about half a mile distant, was a young woman riding toward him. Then she stopped her horse under a tree, and evidently was trying to break off a switch, while her horse pranced around in a most excited fashion. The horse at last starts in a rapid gallop. The young man sees that in trying to get the switch, she has allowed the bridle to get loose and over the horse's head, and can no longer control the fiery animal. Down the road towards him she comes in a sharp gallop, striving to stop the animal with her voice, evidently not the least frightened, but holding on to the pommel of the saddle with one hand while she makes desperate grasps at the hanging rein with the other. The young Puritan smiled, he took in the situation with a glance, and felt no fear for her but rather amusement. He was on the top of a steep hill, and he knew he could easily stop the horse as it came up; even if she did not succeed in regaining her bridle, owing to the better chances the hill gave her. "She is plucky, anyhow, if she is rather a tame wench," said he, as the girl grasped the bridle rein at last, when about half way up the hill, and became again mistress of the blooded creature beneath her. "Is that the way you generally ride, Dulcibel?" asked the young man smiling. "It all comes from starting without my riding whip," replied the girl. "Oh, do stop!" she continued to the horse who now on the level again, began sidling and curveting. "Give me that switch of yours, Jethro. Now, you shall see a miracle." No sooner was the switch in her hand, than the aspect and behavior of the animal changed as if by magic. You might have thought the little mare had been raised in the enclosure of a Quaker meeting-house, so sober and docile did she seem. "It is always so," said the girl laughing. "The little witch knows at once whether I have a whip with me or not, and acts accordingly. No, I will not forgive you," and she gave the horse two or three sharp cuts, which it took like a martyr. "Oh, I wish you would misbehave a little now; I should like to punish you severely." They made a very pretty picture, the little jet-black mare, and the mistress with her scarlet paragon bodice, even if the latter was entirely too pronounced for the taste of the great majority of the inhabitants, young and old, of Salem village. "But how do you happen to be here?" said the girl. "I called to see you, and found you had gone on a visit to Joseph Putnam's. So I thought I would walk up the road and meet you coming back." "What a sweet creature Mistress Putnam is, and both so young for man and wife." "Yes, Jo married early, but he is big enough and strong enough, don't you think so?" "He is a worshiped man indeed. Have you met the stranger yet?" "That Ellis Raymond? No, but I hear he is something of a popinjay in his attire, and swelled up with the conceit that he is better than any of us colonists." "I do not think so," and the girl's cheek colored a deeper red. "He seems to be a very modest young man indeed. I liked him very much." "Oh, well, I have not seen him yet. But they say his father was a son of Belial, and fought under the tyrant at Naseby." "But that is all over and his widowed mother is one of us." "Hang him, what does it matter!" Then, changing his tone, and looking at her a little suspiciously. "Did Leah Herrick say anything to you against me the other night at the husking?" "I do not allow people to talk to me against my friends," replied she earnestly. "She was talking to you a long time I saw." "Yes." "It must have been an interesting subject." "It was rather an unpleasant one to me." "Ah!" "She wanted me to join the 'circle' which they have just started at the minister's house. She says that old Tituba has promised to show them how the Indians of Barbados conjure and powwow, and that it will be great sport for the winter nights." "What did you say to it?" "I told her I would have nothing to do with such things; that I had no liking for them, and that I thought it was wrong to tamper with such matters." "That was all she said to you?" and the young man seemed to breathe more freely. The girl was sharp-witted--what girl is not so in all affairs of the heart?--and it was now her turn. "Leah is very handsome," she said. "Yes--everybody says so," he replied coolly, as if it were a fact of very little importance to him, and a matter which he had thought very little about. Dulcibel, was not one to aim all around the remark; she came at once, simply and directly to the point. "Did you ever pay her any attentions?" "Oh, no, not to speak of. What made you think of such an absurd thing?" "'Not to speak of'--what do you mean?" "Oh, I kept company with her for awhile--before you came to Salem--when we were merely boy and girl." "There never was any troth plighted between you?" "How foolish you are, Dulcibel! What has started you off on this track?" "Yourself. Answer me plainly. Was there ever any love compact between you?" "Oh, pshaw! what nonsense all this is!" "If you do not answer me, I shall ask her this very evening." "Of course there was nothing between us--nothing of any account--only a boy and girl affair--calling her my little wife, and that kind of nonsense." "I think that a great deal. Did that continue up to the time I came to the village?" "How seriously you take it all! Remember, I have your promise, Dulcibel." "A promise on a promise is no promise--every girl knows that. If you do not answer me fully and truly, Jethro, I shall ask Leah." "Yes," said the young man desperately "there was a kind of childish troth up to that time, but it was, as I said, a mere boy and girl affair." "Boy and girl! You were eighteen, Jethro; and she sixteen nearly as old as Joseph Putnam and his wife were when they married." "I do not care. I will not be bound by it; and Leah knows it." "You acted unfairly toward me, Jethro. Leah has the prior right. I recall my troth. I will not marry you without her consent." "You will not!" said the young man passionately--for well he knew that Leah's consent would never be given. "No, I will not!" "Then take your troth back in welcome. In truth, I met you here this day to tell you that. I love Leah Herrick's little finger better than your whole body with your Jezebel's bodice, and your fine lady's airs. You had better go now and marry that conceited popinjay up at Jo Putnam's, if you can get him." With that he pushed off down the hill, and up the road, that he might not be forced to accompany her back to the village. Dulcibel was not prepared for such a burst of wrath, and such an uncovering of the heart. Which of us has not been struck with wonder, even far more than indignation, at such times? A sudden difference occurs, and the man or the woman in whom you have had faith, and whom you have believed noble and admirable, suddenly appears what he or she really is, a very common and vulgar nature. It makes us sick at heart that we could have been so deceived. Such was the effect upon Dulcibel. What a chasm she had escaped. To think she had really agreed to marry such a spirit as that! But fortunately it was now all over. She not only had lost a lover, but a friend. And one day before, this also would have had its unpleasant side to her. But now she felt even a sensation of relief. Was it because this very day a new vision had entered into the charmed circle of her life? If it were so, she did not acknowledge the fact to herself; or even wonder in her own mind, why the sudden breaking of her troth-plight had not left her in a sadder humor. For she put "Little Witch" into a brisk canter, and with a smile upon her face rode into the main street of the village. CHAPTER II. In Which Some Necessary Information is Given. Dulcibel Burton was an orphan. Her father becoming a little unsound in doctrine, and being greatly pleased with the larger liberty of conscience offered by William Penn to his colonists in Pennsylvania, had leased his house and lands to a farmer by the name of Buckley, and departed for Philadelphia. This was some ten years previous to the opening of our story. After living happily in Philadelphia for about eight years he died suddenly, and his wife decided to return to her old home in Salem village, having arranged to board with Goodman Buckley, whose lease had not yet expired. But in the course of the following winter she also died, leaving this only child, Dulcibel, now a beautiful girl of eighteen years. Dulcibel, as was natural, went on living with the Buckleys, who had no children of their own, and were very good-hearted and affectionate people. Dulcibel therefore was an heiress, in a not very large way, besides having wealthy relatives in England, from some of whom in the course of years more or less might reasonably be expected. And as our Puritan ancestors were by no means blind to their worldly interests, believing that godliness had the promise of this world as well as that which is to come--the bereaved maiden became quite an object of interest to the young men of the vicinity. I have called her beautiful, and not without good reason. With the old manuscript volume--a family heirloom of some Quaker friends of mine--from which I have drawn the facts of this narrative, came also an old miniature, the work of a well-known English artist of that period. The colors have faded considerably, but the general contour and the features are well preserved. The face is oval, with a rather higher and fuller forehead than usual; the hair, which was evidently of a rather light brown, being parted in the center, and brought down with a little variation from the strict Madonna fashion. The eyes are large, and blue. The lips rather full. A snood or fillet of blue ribbon confined her luxuriant hair. In form she was rather above the usual height of women, and slender as became her age; though with a perceptible tendency towards greater fullness with increasing years. There is rather curiously a great resemblance between this miniature, and a picture I have in my possession of the first wife of a celebrated New England poet. He himself being named for one of the Judges who sat in the Special Court appointed for the trial of the alleged witches, it would be curious if the beautiful and angelic wife of his youth were allied by blood to one of those who had the misfortune to come under the ban of witchcraft. Being both beautiful and an heiress, Dulcibel naturally attracted the attention of her near neighbor in the village, Jethro Sands. Jethro was quite a handsome young man after a certain style, though, as his life proved, narrow minded, vindictive and avaricious. Still he had a high reputation as a young man with the elders of the village; for he had early seen how advantageous it was to have a good standing in the church, and was very orthodox in his faith, and very regular in his attendance at all the church services. Besides, he was a staunch champion of the Reverend Mr. Parris in all his difficulties with the parish, and in return was invariably spoken of by the minister as one of the most promising young men in that neighborhood. Jethro resided with his aunt, the widow Sands. She inherited from her husband the whole of his property. His deed for the land narrated that the boundary line ran "from an old dry stump, due south, to the southwest corner of his hog-pen, then east by southerly to the top of the hill near a little pond, then north by west to the highway side, and thence along the highway to the old dry stump again aforesaid." There is a tradition in the village that by an adroit removal of his hog-pen to another location, and the uprooting and transplanting of the old dry stump, at a time when nobody seemed to take a very active interest in the adjoining land, owing to its title being disputed in successive lawsuits, Jethro, who inherited at the death of his aunt, became the possessor of a large tract of land that did not originally belong to him. But then such stories are apt to crop up after the death of every man who has acquired the reputation of being crafty and close in his dealings. We left Jethro, after his interview with Dulcibel, walking on in order that he might avoid her further company. After going a short distance he turned and saw that she was riding rapidly homeward. Then he began to retrace his steps. "It was bound to come," he muttered. "I have seen she was getting cold and thought it was Leah's work, but it seems she was true to her promise after all. Well, Leah is poor, and not of so good a family, but she is worth a dozen of such as Dulcibel Burton." Then after some minutes' silent striding, "I hate her though for it, all the same. Everybody will know she has thrown me off. But nobody shall get ahead of Jethro Sands in the long run. I'll make her sorry for it before she dies, the spoiled brat of a Quaker infidel!" CHAPTER III. The Circle in the Minister's House. It would, perhaps be unfair to hold the Reverend Master Parris responsible for the wild doings that went on in the parsonage house during the winter evenings of 1691-2, in the face of his solemn assertion, made several years afterwards, that he was ignorant of them. And yet, how could such things have been without the knowledge either of himself or his wife? Mistress Parris has come down to us with the reputation of a kindly and discreet woman--nothing having been said to her discredit, so far as I am aware, even by those who had a bitter controversy with her husband. And yet she certainly must have known of the doings of the famous "circle," even if she refrained from speaking of them to her husband. At the very bottom of the whole thing, perhaps, were the West Indian slaves--"John Indias" and his wife Tituba, whom Master Parris had brought with him from Barbados. There were two children in the house, a little daughter of nine, named Elizabeth; and Abigail Williams, three years older. These very probably, Tituba often had sought to impress, as is the manner of negro servants, with tales of witchcraft, the "evil-eye" and "evil hand" spirits, powwowing, etc. Ann Putnam, another precocious child of twelve, the daughter of a near neighbor, Sergeant Putnam, the parish clerk, also was soon drawn into the knowledge of the savage mysteries. And, before very long, a regular "circle" of these and older girls was formed for the purpose of amusing and startling themselves with the investigation and performance of forbidden things. At the present day this would not be so reprehensible. We are comparatively an unbelieving generation; and what are called "spiritual circles" are common, though not always unattended with mischievous results. But at that time when it was considered a deadly sin to seek intercourse with those who claimed to have "a familiar spirit," that such practices should be allowed to go on for a whole winter, in the house of a Puritan minister, seems unaccountable. But the fact itself is undoubted, and the consequences are written in mingled tears and blood upon the saddest pages of the history of New England. Among the members of this "circle" were Mary Walcott, aged seventeen, the daughter of Captain Walcott; Elizabeth Hubbard and Mercy Lewis, also seventeen; Elizabeth Booth and Susannah Sheldon, aged eighteen; and Mary Warren, Sarah Churchhill and Leah Herrick, aged twenty; these latter being the oldest of the party. They were all the daughters of respectable and even leading men, with the exception of Mercy Lewis, Mary Warren, Leah Herrick and Sarah Churchhill, who were living out as domestics, but who seem to have visited as friends and equals the other girls in the village. In fact, it was not considered at that time degrading in country neighborhoods--perhaps it is not so now in many places--for the sons and daughters of men of respectability, and even of property, to occupy the position of "help" or servant, eating at the same table with, and being considered members of the family. In the case before us, Mercy Lewis, Mary Warren and Sarah Churchhill seem to have been among the most active and influential members of the party. Though Abigail Williams, the minister's niece, and Ann Putnam, only eleven and twelve years of age respectively, proved themselves capable of an immense deal of mischief. What the proceedings of these young women actually were, neither tradition nor any records that I have met with, informs us; but the result was even worse than could have been expected. By the close of the winter they had managed to get their nervous systems, their imaginations, and their minds and hearts, into a most dreadful condition. If they had regularly sold themselves to be the servants of the Evil One, as was then universally believed to be possible--and which may really be possible, for anything I know to the contrary--their condition could hardly have been worse than it was. They were liable to sudden faintings of an unnatural character, to spasmodic movements and jerkings of the head and limbs, to trances, to the seeing of witches and devils, to deafness, to dumbness, to alarming outcries, to impudent and lying speeches and statements, and to almost everything else that was false, irregular and unnatural. Some of these things were doubtless involuntary but the voluntary and involuntary seemed to be so mingled in their behavior, that it was difficult sometimes to determine which was one and which the other. The moral sense seemed to have become confused, if not utterly lost for the time. They were full of tricks. They stuck concealed pins into their bodies, and accused others of doing it--their contortions and trances were to a great extent mere shams--they lied without scruple--they bore false witness, and what in many, if not most, cases they knew was false witness, against not only those to whom they bore ill will but against the most virtuous and kindly women of the neighborhood; and if the religious delusion had taken another shape, and we see no reason why it should not have done so, and put the whole of them on trial as seekers after "familiar spirits" and condemned the older girls to death, there would at least have been some show of justice in the proceedings; while, as it is, there is not a single ray of light to illuminate the judicial gloom. When at last Mr. Parris and Thomas Putnam became aware of the condition of their children, they called in the village physician, Dr. Griggs. The latter, finding he could do nothing with his medicines, gave it as his opinion that they were "under an evil hand"--the polite medical phrase of that day, for being bewitched. That important point being settled, the next followed of course, "Who has bewitched them?" The children being asked said, "Tituba." CHAPTER IV. Satan's Especial Grudge against Our Puritan Fathers. "Tituba!" And who else? Why need there have been anybody else? Why could not the whole thing have stopped just there? No doubt Tituba was guilty, if any one was. But Tituba escaped, by shrewdly also becoming an accuser. "Who else?" This set the children's imagination roving. Their first charges were not so unreasonable. Why, the vagrant Sarah Good, a social outcast, wandering about without any settled habitation; and Sarah Osburn, a bed-ridden woman, half distracted by family troubles who had seen better days. There the truth was out. Tituba, Sarah Good and Sarah Osburn were the agents of the devil in this foul attempt against the peace of the godly inhabitants of Salem village. For it was a common belief even amongst the wisest and best of our Puritan fathers, that the devil had a special spite against the New England colonies. They looked at it in this way. He had conquered in the fight against the Lord in the old world. He was the supreme and undoubted lord of the "heathen salvages" in the new. Now that the Puritan forces had commenced an onslaught upon him in the western hemisphere, to which he had an immemorial right as it were, could it be wondered at that he was incensed beyond all calculation? Was he, after having Europe, Asia and Africa, to be driven out of North America by a small body of steeple-hatted, psalm-singing, and conceited Puritans? No wonder his satanic ire was aroused; and that he was up to all manner of devices to harass, disorganize and afflict the camp of his enemies. I am afraid this seems a little ridiculous to readers nowadays; but to the men and women of two hundred years ago it was grim and sober earnest, honestly and earnestly believed in. Who, in the face of such wonderful changes in our religious views, can venture to predict what will be the belief of our descendants two hundred years hence? CHAPTER V. Leah Herrick's Position and Feelings. I have classed Leah Herrick among the domestics; but her position was rather above that. She had lived with the Widow Sands, Jethro's aunt, since she had been twelve years old, assisting in the housework, and receiving her board and clothing in return. Now, at the age of twenty, she was worth more than that recompense; but she still remained on the old terms, as if she were a daughter instead of a servant. She remained, asking nothing more, because she had made up her mind to be Jethro's wife. She had a passion for Jethro, and she knew that Jethro reciprocated it. But his aunt, who was ambitious, wished him to look higher; and therefore did not encourage such an alliance. Leah was however too valuable and too cheap an assistant to be dispensed with, and thus removed from such a dangerous proximity, besides the widow really had no objection to her, save on account of her poverty. Leah said nothing when she saw that Jethro's attentions were directed in another direction; but without saying anything directly to Dulcibel, she contrived to impress her with the fact that she had trespassed upon her rightful domain. For Leah was a cat; and amidst her soft purrings, she would occasionally put out her velvety paw, and give a wicked little scratch that made the blood come, and so softly and innocently too, that the sufferer could hardly take offence at it. Between these sharp intimations of Leah, and the unpleasant revelations of the innate hardness of the young man's character, which resulted from the closer intimacy of a betrothal, Dulcibel's affection had been gradually cooling for several months. But although the longed-for estrangement between the two had at length taken place, Leah did not feel quite safe yet; for the Widow Sands was very much put out about it, and censured her nephew for his want of wisdom in not holding Dulcibel to her engagement. "She has a good house and farm already, and she will be certain to receive much more on the death of her bachelor uncle in England," said the aunt sharply. "You must strive to undo that foolish hour's work. It was only a tiff on her part, and you should have cried your eyes out if necessary." And so Leah, thinking in her own heart that Jethro was a prize for any girl, was in constant dread of a renewal of the engagement, and ready to go to any length to prevent it. Although a member of the "circle" that met at the minister's house, Leah was not so regular an attendant as the others; for there were no men there and she never liked to miss the opportunity of a private conversation with Jethro, opportunities which were somewhat limited, owing to the continual watchfulness of her mistress. Still she went frequently enough to be fully imbued with the spirit of their doings, while not becoming such a victim as most of them were to disordered nerves, and an impaired and confused mental and moral constitution. CHAPTER VI. A Disorderly Scene in Church. If anything were needed to add to the excitement which the condition of the "afflicted children," as they were generally termed, naturally produced in Salem village and the adjoining neighborhood, it was a scene in the village church one Sunday morning. The church was a low, small structure, with rough, unplastered roof and walls, and wooden benches instead of pews. The sexes were divided, the men sitting on one side and the women on the other, but each person in his or her regular and appointed seat. It was the custom at that time to select a seating committee of judicious and careful men, whose very important duty it was to seat the congregation. In doing this they proceeded on certain well-defined principles. The front seats were to be filled with the older members of the congregation, a due reverence for age, as well as for the fact that these were more apt to be weak of sight and infirm of hearing, necessitated this. Then came the elders and deacons of the church; then the wealthier citizens of the parish; then the younger people and the children. The Puritan fathers had their faults; but they never would have tolerated the fashionable custom of these days, whereby the wealthy, without regard to their age, occupy the front pews; and the poorer members, no matter how aged, or infirm of sight or hearing are often forced back where they can neither see the minister nor hear the sermon. And one can imagine in what forcible terms they would have denounced some city meeting-houses of the present era where the church is regarded somewhat in the light of an opera house, and the doors of the pews kept locked and closed until those who have purchased the right to reserved seats shall have had the first chance to enter. The Reverend Master Lawson, a visiting elder, was the officiating minister on the Sunday to which we have referred. The psalm had been sung after the opening prayer and the minister was about to come forward to give his sermon, when, before he could rise from his seat, Abigail Williams, the niece of the Reverend Master Parris, only twelve years old, and one of the "circle" cried out loudly:--"Now stand up and name your text!" When he had read the text, she exclaimed insolently, "It's a long text." And then when he was referring to his doctrine, she said:--"I know no doctrine you mentioned. If you named any, I have forgotten it." And then when he had concluded, she cried out, "Look! there sits Goody Osburn upon the beam, suckling her yellow-bird betwixt her fingers." Then Ann Putnam, that other child of twelve, joined in; "There flies the yellow-bird to the minister's hat, hanging on the pin in the pulpit." Of course such disorderly proceedings produced a great excitement in the congregation; but the two children do not appear to have been rebuked by either of the ministers, or by any of the officers of the church; it seeming to have been the general conclusion that they were not responsible for what they said, but were constrained by an irresistible and diabolical influence. In truth, the children were regarded with awe and pity instead of reproof and blame, and therefore naturally felt encouraged to further efforts in the same direction. I have said that this was the general feeling, but that feeling was not universal. Several of the members, notably young Joseph Putnam, Francis Nurse and Peter Cloyse were very much displeased at the toleration shown to such disorderly doings, and began to absent themselves from public worship, with the result of incurring the anger of the children, who were rapidly assuming the role of destroying angels to the people of Salem village and its vicinity. As fasting and prayer were the usual resources of our Puritan fathers in difficulties, these were naturally resorted to at once upon this occasion. The families to which the "afflicted children" belonged assembled the neighbors--who had also fasted--and, under the guidance of the Reverend Master Parris, besought the Lord to deliver them from the power of the Evil One. These were exciting occasions, for, whenever there was a pause in the proceedings, such of the "afflicted" as were present would break out into demoniac howlings, followed by contortions and rigid trances, which, in the words of our manuscript, were "enough to make the devil himself weep." These village prayers, however, seeming to be insufficient, Master Parris called a meeting of the neighboring ministers; but the prayers of these also had no effect. The "children" even surpassed themselves on this occasion. The ministers could not doubt the evidence of their own reverend eyes and ears, and united in the declaration of their belief that Satan had been let loose in this little Massachusetts village, to confound and annoy the godly, to a greater extent than they had ever before known or heard of. And now that the ministers had spoken, it was almost irreligious and atheistical for others to express any doubt. For if the ministers could not speak with authority in a case of this kind, which seemed to be within their peculiar field and province, what was their judgment worth upon any matter? CHAPTER VII. A Conversation with Dulcibel. As Dulcibel sat in the little room which she had furnished in a pretty but simple way for a parlor, some days after the meeting of the ministers, her thoughts naturally dwelt upon all these exciting events which were occurring around her. It was an April day, and the snow had melted earlier than usual, and it seemed as if the spring might be an exceptionally forward one. The sun was pleasantly warm, and the wind blowing soft and gently from the south; and a canary bird in the rustic cage that hung on the wall was singing at intervals a hymn of rejoicing at the coming of the spring. The bird was one that had been given her by a distinguished sea-captain of Boston town, who had brought it home from the West Indies. Dulcibel had tamed and petted it, until she could let it out from the cage and allow it to fly around the room; then, at the words, "Come Cherry," as she opened the little door of the cage, the bird would fly in again, knowing that he would be rewarded for his good conduct with a little piece of sweet cake. Cherry would perch on her finger and sing his prettiest strains on some occasions; and at others eat out of her hand. But his prettiest feat was to kiss his mistress by putting his little beak to her lips, when she would say in a caressing tone, "Kiss me, pretty Cherry." After playing with the canary for a little while, Dulcibel sighed and put him back in his cage, hearing a knock at the front door of the cottage. And she had just turned from the cage to take a seat, when the door opened and two persons entered. "I am glad to see you, friends," she said calmly, inviting them to be seated. It was Joseph Putnam, accompanied by his friend and visitor, Ellis Raymond, the young man of whom Dulcibel had spoken to Jethro Sands. Joseph Putnam was one of that somewhat distinguished family from whom came the Putnams of Revolutionary fame; Major-General Israel Putnam, the wolf-slayer, being one of his younger children. He, the father I mean, was a man of fine, athletic frame, not only of body but of mind. He was one of the very few in Salem village who despised the whole witch-delusion from the beginning. He did not disbelieve in the existence of witches--or that the devil was tormenting the "afflicted children"--but that faith should be put in their wild stories was quite another matter. Of his companion, Master Ellis Raymond, I find no other certain account anywhere than in my Quaker friend's manuscript. From the little that is there given of personal description I have only the three phrases "a comelie young man," "a very quick-witted person," "a very determined and courageous man," out of which to build a physical and spiritual description. And so I think it rather safer to leave the portraiture to the imagination of my readers. "Do you expect to remain long in Salem?" asked Dulcibel. "I do not know yet," was the reply. "I came that I might see what prospects the new world holds out to young men." "I want Master Raymond to purchase the Orchard Farm, and settle down among us," said Joseph Putnam. "It can be bought I think." "I have heard people say the price is a very high one," said Dulcibel. "It is high but the land is worth the money. In twenty years it will seem very low. My father saw the time when a good cow was worth as much as a fifty-acre farm, but land is continually rising in value." "I shall look farther south before deciding," said Raymond. "I am told the land is better there; besides there are too many witches here," and he smiled. "We have been up to see my brother Thomas," continued Joseph Putnam. "He always has had the reputation of being a sober-headed man, but he is all off his balance now." "What does Mistress Putnam say?" asked Dulcibel. "Oh, she is at the bottom of all his craziness, she and that elfish daughter. Sister Ann is a very intelligent woman in some respects, but she is wild upon this question." "I am told by the neighbors that the child is greatly afflicted." "She came in the room while we were there," responded Master Raymond. "I knew not what to make of it. She flung herself down on the floor, she crept under the table, she shrieked, she said Goody Osburn was sticking pins in her, and wound up by going into convulsions." "What can it all mean?--it is terrible," said Dulcibel. "Well, the Doctor says she is suffering under an 'evil hand,' and the ministers have given their solemn opinion that she is bewitched; and brother Thomas and Sister Ann, and about all the rest of the family agree with them." "I am afraid it will go hard with those two old women," interposed Ellis Raymond. "They will hang them as sure as they are tried," answered Joseph Putnam. "Not that it makes much difference, for neither of them is much to speak of; but they have a right to a fair trial nevertheless, and they cannot get such a thing just now in Salem village. "I can hardly believe there are such things as witches," said Dulcibel, "and if there are, I do not believe the good Lord would allow them to torment innocent children." "Oh, I don't know that it will do to say there are no witches," replied Joseph Putnam gravely. "It seems to me we must give up the Bible if we say that. For the Old Testament expressly commands that we must not suffer a witch to live; and it would be absurd to give such a command if there were no such persons as witches." "I suppose it must be so," admitted Dulcibel, with a deep sigh. "And then again in the New Testament we have continual references to persons possessed with devils, and others who had familiar spirits, and if such persons existed then, why not now?" "Oh, of course, it is so," again admitted Dulcibel with even a deeper sigh than before. But even in that day, outside of the Puritan and other religious bodies, there were unbelievers; and Ellis Raymond had allowed himself to smile once or twice, unperceived by the others, during their conversation. Thus we read in the life of that eminent jurist, the Honorable Francis North, who presided at a trial for witchcraft about ten years before the period of which we are writing, that he looked upon the whole thing as a vulgar delusion, though he said it was necessary to be very careful to conceal such opinions from the juries of the time, or else they would set down the judges at once as irreligious persons, and bring in the prisoners guilty. "I am not so certain of it," said Ellis Raymond. "How! What do you mean, Master Raymond?" exclaimed Joseph Putnam; like all his family, he was orthodox to the bone in his opinions. "My idea is that in the old times they supposed all distracted and insane people--especially the violent ones, the maniacs--to be possessed with devils." "Do you think so?" queried Dulcibel in a glad voice, a light seeming to break in upon her. "Well, I take it for granted that there were plenty of insane people in the old times as there are now; and yet I see no mention of them as such, in either the Old or the New Testament." "I never thought of that before; it seems to me a very reasonable explanation, does it not strike you so, Master Putnam?" "So reasonable, that it reasons away all our faith in the absolute truthfulness of every word of the holy scriptures," replied Joseph Putnam sternly. "Do you suppose the Evangelists, when they spoke of persons having 'familiar spirits,' and being 'possessed of devils,' did not know what they were talking about? I would rather believe that every insane person now is possessed with a devil, and that such is the true explanation of his or her insanity, than to fly in the face of the holy scriptures as you do, Master Raymond." Dulcibel's countenance fell. "Yes," she responded in reverential tones, "the holy Evangelists must know best. If they said so, it must be so." "You little orthodox darling!" thought young Master Raymond, gazing upon her beautiful sad face. But of course he did not express himself to such an effect, except by his gaze; and Dulcibel happening to look up and catch the admiring expression of two clear brown eyes, turned her own instantly down again, while a faint blush mantled her cheeks. The young Englishman knew that in arousing such heterodox opinions he was getting on dangerous ground. For expressing not a greater degree of heresy than he had uttered, other men and even women had been turned neck and heels out of the Puritan settlements. And as he had no desire to leave Salem just at present, he began to "hedge" a little, as betting men sometimes say. "Insane people, maniacs especially, do sometimes act as if they were possessed of the devil," he said frankly. "And no doubt their insanity is often the result of the sinful indulgence of their wicked propensities and passions." "Yes, that seems to be very reasonable," said Dulcibel. "Every sinful act seems to me a yielding to the evil one, and such yielding becoming common, he may at least be able to enter into the soul, and take absolute possession of it. Oh, it is very fearful!" and she shuddered. "But I find one opinion almost universal in Salem," continued Raymond, "and that is one which I think has no ground to sustain it in the scriptures, and is very mischievous. It is that the devil cannot act directly upon human beings to afflict and torment them; but that he is forced to have recourse to the agency of other human beings, who have become his worshipers and agents. Thus in the cases of these children and young girls, instead of admitting that the devil and his imps are directly afflicting them, they begin to look around for witches and wizards as the sources of the trouble." "Yes," responded Joseph Putnam earnestly, "that false and unscriptural doctrine is the source of all the trouble. That little Ann Putnam, Abigail Williams and the others are bewitched, may perhaps be true--a number of godly ministers say so, and they ought to know. But, if they are bewitched, it is the devil and his imps that have done it. If they are 'possessed with devils'--and does not that scripture mean that the devils directly take possession of them--what is their testimony worth against others? It is nearly the testimony of Satan and his imps, speaking through them. While they are in that state, their evidence should not be allowed credence by any magistrate, any more than the devil's should." It seems very curious to those of the present day who have investigated this matter of witch persecutions, that such a sound and orthodox view as this of Joseph Putnam's should have had such little weight with the judges and ministers and other leading men of the seventeenth century. While a few urged it, even as Joseph Putnam did, at the risk of his own life, the great majority not only of the common people but of the leading classes, regarded it as unsound and irreligious. But the whole history of the world proves that the _vox populi_ is very seldom the _vox Dei_. The light shines down from the rising sun in the heavens, and the mountain tops first receive the rays. The last new truth is always first perceived by the small minority of superior minds and souls. How indeed could it be otherwise, so long as truth like light always shines down from above? "Have you communicated this view to your brother and sister?" asked Dulcibel. "I have talked with them for a whole evening, but I do think Sister Ann is possessed too," replied Joseph Putnam. "She fairly raves sometimes. You know how bitterly she feels about that old church quarrel, when a small minority of the Parish succeeded in preventing the permanent settlement of her sister's husband as minister. She seems to have the idea that all that party are emissaries of Satan. I do not wonder her little girl should be so nervous and excitable, being the child of such a nervous, high-strung woman. But I am going to see them again this afternoon; will you go too, Master Raymond?' "I think not," replied the latter with a smile, "I should do harm, I fear, instead of good. I will stay here and talk with Mistress Dulcibel a little while longer." Master Putnam departed, and then the conversation became of a lighter character. The young Englishman told Dulcibel of his home in the old world, and of his travels in France and Switzerland. And they talked of all those little things which young people will--little things, but which afford constant peeps into each other's mind and heart. Dulcibel thought she had never met such a cultivated young man, although she had read of such; and he felt very certain that he never met with such a lovely young woman. Not that she was over intelligent--one of those precociously "smart" young women that, thanks to the female colleges and the "higher culture" are being "developed" in such alarming numbers nowadays. If she had been such a being, I fancy Master Raymond would have found her less attractive. Ah, well, after a time perhaps, we of the present day shall have another craze--that of barbarism--in which the "coming woman" shall pride herself mainly upon possessing a strong, healthy and vigorous physical organization, developed within the feminine lines of beauty, and only a reasonable degree of intelligence and "culture." And then I hope we shall see the last of walking female encyclopedias, with thin waists, and sickly and enfeebled bodies; fit to be the mothers only of a rapidly dwindling race, even if they have the wish and power to become mothers at all. I am not much of a believer in love at first sight, but certainly persons may become very much interested in each other after a few hours' conversation; and so it was in the case before us. When Ellis Raymond took up his hat, and then lingered minute after minute, as if he could not bring himself to the point of departure, he simply manifested anew to the maiden what his tones and looks had been telling her for an hour, that he admired her very greatly. "Come soon again," Dulcibel said softly, as the young man managed to open the door at last, and make his final adieu. "And indeed I shall if you will permit me," was his earnest response. But some fair reader may ask, "What were these two doing during all the winter, that they had not seen each other?" I answer that Dulcibel had withdrawn from the village gatherings since the breaking of the engagement with Jethro. At the best, it was an acknowledgment that she had been too hasty in a matter that she should not have allowed herself to fail in; and she felt humbled under the thought. Besides, it seemed to her refined and sensitive nature only decorous that she should withdraw for a time into the seclusion of her own home under such circumstances. As for the village gossips, they entirely misinterpreted her conduct. Inasmuch as Jethro went around as usual, and put a bold face upon the matter, they came to the conclusion that he had thrown her off, and that she was moping at home, because she felt the blow so keenly. Thus it was that while the young Englishman had attended many social gatherings during the winter he had never met the one person whom he was especially desirous of again meeting. One little passage of the conversation between the two it may be well however to refer to expressly for its bearing upon a very serious matter. Raymond had mentioned that he had not seen her recently flying around on that little jet black horse, and had asked whether she still owned it. "Oh, yes," replied Dulcibel; "I doubt that I should be able to sell Little Witch if I wished to do so." "Ah, how is that? She seems to be a very fine riding beast." "She is, very! But you have not heard that I am the only one that has ever ridden her or that can ride her." "Indeed! that is curious." I have owned her from a little colt. She was never broken to harness; and no one, as I said, has ever ridden her but me. So that now if any other person, man or woman, attempts to do so, she will not allow it. She rears, she plunges, and finally as a last resort, if necessary, lies down on the ground and refuses to stir. "Why, that is very flattering to you, Dulcibel," said Raymond smiling. "I never knew an animal of better taste." "That may be," replied the maiden blushing; "but you see how it is that I shall never be able to sell Little Witch if I desire to do so. She is not worth her keep to any one but me." "Little Witch! Why did you ever give her a name like that?" "Oh, I was a mere child--and my father, who had been a sea-captain, and all over the world, did not believe in witches. He named her "Little Witch" because she was so black, and so bent on her own way. But I must change her name now that people are talking so about witches. In truth my mother never liked it." CHAPTER VIII. An Examination of Reputed Witches. Warrants had been duly issued against Sarah Good, Sarah Osburn, and the Indian woman Tituba, and they were now to be tried for the very serious offence of bewitching the "afflicted children." One way that the witches of that day were supposed to work, was to make images out of rags, like dolls, which they named for the persons they meant to torment. Then, by sticking pins and needles into the dolls, tightening cords around their throats, and similar doings, the witches caused the same amount of pain as if they had done it to the living objects of their enmity. In these cases, the officers who executed the warrants of arrest, stated "that they had made diligent search for images and such like, but could find none." On the day appointed for the examination of these poor women, the two leading magistrates of the neighborhood, John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin, rode up the principal street of the village attended by the marshal and constables, in quite an imposing array. The crowd was so great that they had to hold the session in the meeting-house The magistrates belonged to the highest legislative and judicial body in the colony. Hathorne, as the name was then spelt, was the ancestor of the gifted author, Nathaniel Hawthorne--the alteration in the spelling of the name probably being made to make it conform more nearly to the pronunciation. Hathorne was a man of force and ability--though evidently also as narrow-minded and unfair as only a bigot can be. All through the examination that ensued he took a leading part, and with him, to be accused was to be set down at once as guilty. Never, among either Christian or heathen people, was there a greater travesty of justice than these examinations and trials for witchcraft, conducted by the very foremost men of the Massachusetts colony. The accounts of the examination of these three women in the manuscript book I have alluded to, are substantially the same as in the official records, which are among those that have been preserved. I will give some quotations to show how the examinations were conducted:-- "Sarah Good, what evil spirit are you familiar with?" She answered sharply, "None!" "Have you made no contracts with the Devil?" "No!" "Why then do you hurt these children?" "I do not hurt them. I would scorn to do it." "Here the children who were facing her, began to be dreadfully tormented; and then when their torments were over for the time, again accused her, and also Sarah Osburn. "Sarah Good, why do you not tell us the truth? Why do you thus torment them?" "I do not torment them." "Who then does torment them?" "It may be that Sarah Osburn does, for I do not." "Her answers," says the official report, "were very quick, sharp and malignant." It must be remembered in reading these reports, that the accused were not allowed any counsel, either at the preliminary examinations, or on the trials; that the apparent sufferings of the children were very great, producing almost a frenzied state of feeling in the crowd who looked on; and that they themselves were often as much puzzled as their accusers, to account for what was taking place before their eyes. In the examination of Sarah Osburn, we have similar questions and similar answers. In addition, however, three witnesses alleged that she had said that very morning, that she was "more like to be bewitched herself." Mr. Hathorne asked why she said that. She answered that either she saw at one time, or dreamed that she saw, a thing like an Indian, all black, which did pinch her in the neck, and pulled her by the back part of the head to the door of the house. And there was also a lying spirit. "What lying spirit was this?" "It was a voice that I thought I heard." "What did it say to you?" "That I should go no more to meeting; but I said I would, and did go the next Sabbath day." "Were you ever tempted further?" "No." "Why did you yield then to the Devil, not to go to meeting for the last three years?" "Alas! I have been sick all that time, and not able to go." Then Tituba was brought in. Tituba was in the "circle" or an attendant and inspirer of the "circle" from the first; and had marvelous things to tell. How it was that the "children" turned against her and accused her, I do not know; but probably she had practised so much upon them in various ways, that she really was guilty of trying to do the things she was charged with. "Tituba, why do you hurt these children?" "Tituba does not hurt 'em." "Who does hurt them then?" "The debbil, for all I knows.' "Did you ever see the Devil?" Tituba gave a low laugh. "Of course I've seen the debbil. The debbil came an' said, 'Serb me, Tituba.' But I would not hurt the child'en." "Who else have you seen?" "Four women. Goody Osburn and Sarah Good, and two other women. Dey all hurt de child'en." "How does the Devil appear to you?" "Sometimes he is like a dog, and sometimes like a hog. The black dog always goes with a yellow bird." "Has the Devil any other shapes?" "Yes, he sometimes comes as a red cat, and then a black cat." "And they all tell you to hurt the children?" "Yes, but I said I would not." "Did you not pinch Elizabeth Hubbard this morning?" "The black man brought me to her, and made me pinch her." "Why did you go to Thomas Putnam's last night and hurt his daughter Ann?" "He made me go." "How did you go?" "We rode on sticks; we soon got there." "Has Sarah Good any familiar?" "Yes, a yeller bird. It sucks her between her fingers. And Sarah Osburn has a thing with a head like a woman, and it has two wings." ("Abigail Williams, who lives with her uncle, the Rev. Master Parris, here testified that she did see the same creature, and it turned into the shape of Goody Osburn.") "Tituba further said that she had also seen a hairy animal with Goody Osburn, that had only two legs, and walked like a man. And that she saw Sarah Good, last Saturday, set a wolf upon Elizabeth Hubbard." ("The friends of Elizabeth Hubbard here said that she did complain of being torn by a wolf on that day.") "Tituba being asked further to describe her ride to Thomas Putnam's, for the purpose of tormenting his daughter Ann, said that she rode upon a stick or pole, and Sarah Good and Sarah Osburn behind her, all taking hold of one another. Did not know how it was done, for she saw no trees nor path, but was presently there." These examinations were continued for several days, each of the accused being brought at various times before the magistrates, who seem to have taken great interest in the absurd stories with which the "afflicted children" and Tituba regaled them. Finally, all three of the accused were committed to Boston jail, there to await their trial for practising witchcraft; being heavily ironed, as, being witches, it was supposed to be very difficult to keep them from escaping; and as their ability to torment people with their spectres, was considered lessened in proportion to the weight and tightness of the chains with which they were fettered. It is not to be wondered at, that under these inflictions, at the end of two months, the invalid, Sarah Osburn, died. Tituba, however, lay in jail until, finally, at the expiration of a year and a month, she was sold in payment of her jail fees. One account saying that her owner, the Rev. Master Parris, refused to pay her jail fees, unless she would still adhere to what she had testified on her examination, instead of alleging that he whipped and otherwise abused her, to make her confess that she was a witch. CHAPTER IX. One Hundred and Fifty More Alleged Witches. Ah this was bad enough, but it was but the beginning of trouble. Tituba had spoken of two other women, but had given no names. The "afflicted children" were still afflicted, and growing worse, instead of better. The Rev. Master Noyes of Salem town, the Rev. Master Parris of Salem village, Sergeant Thomas Putnam, and his wife,--which last also was becoming bewitched, and had many old enmities--and many other influential people and church members, were growing more excited, and vindictive against the troubles of their peace, with every passing day. "Who are they that still torment you in this horrible manner?" was the question asked of the children and young women, and they had their answers ready. There had been an old quarrel between the Endicotts and the Nurses, a family which owned the Bishop Farm, about the eastern boundary of said farm. There had been the quarrel about who should be minister, in which the Nurses had sided with the determined opponents of Mistress Ann Putnam's reverend brother-in-law. The Nurses and other families were staunch opposers of Master Parris's claim to ownership of the Parsonage and its grounds. And it was not to be wondered at, that the accusations should be made against opponents rather than against friends. Besides, there were those who had very little faith in the children themselves, and had taken a kind of stand against them; and these too, were in a dangerous position. "Who torments you now?" The answer was ready: Martha Corey, and Rebecca Nurse, and Bridget Bishop, and so on; the charges being made now against the members, often the heads, of the most reputable families in Salem town and village and the surrounding neighborhoods. Before the coming of the winter snows probably one hundred and fifty persons were in prison at Salem and Ipswich and Boston and Cambridge. Two-thirds of these were women; many of them were aged and venerable men and women of the highest reputation for behavior and piety. Yet, they were bound with chains, and exposed to all the hardships that attended incarceration in small and badly constructed prisons. A special court composed of the leading judges in the province being appointed by the Governor for the trial of these accused persons, a mass of what would be now styled "utter nonsense" was brought against them. No wonder that the official record of this co-called court of justice is now nowhere to be found. The partial accounts that have come down to us are sufficient to brand its proceeding with everlasting infamy. Let us recur to the charges against some of these persons: The Rev. Cotton Mather, speaking of the trial of Bridget Bishop, says: "There was one strange thing with which the Court was _newly entertained_. As this woman was passing by the meeting-house, she gave a look towards the house; and immediately a demon, invisibly entering the house, tore down a part of it; so that, though there was no person to be seen there, yet the people, at the noise, running in, found a board, which was strongly fastened with several nails, transported into another quarter of the house." A court of very ignorant men would be "entertained" now with such a story, in a very different sense from that in which the Rev. Cotton Mather used the word. The Court of 1692, doubtless swallowed the story whole, for it was no more absurd than the bulk of the evidence upon which they condemned the reputed witches. One of the charges against the Rev. Master Burroughs, who had himself been a minister for a short time in the village, was, that though a small, slender man, he was a giant in strength. Several persons witnessed that "he had held out a gun of seven foot barrel with one hand; and had carried a barrel full of cider from a canoe to the shore." Burroughs said that an Indian present at the time did the same, but the answer was ready. "That was the black man, or the Devil, who looks like an Indian." Another charge against Master Burroughs was, that he went on a certain occasion between two places in a shorter time than was possible, if the Devil had not assisted him. Both Increase Mather, the father, and his son Cotton, two of the most prominent and influential of the Boston ministers, said that the testimony as to Mr. Burroughs' giant strength was alone sufficient rightfully to convict him. It is not improbable that the real animus of the feeling against Master Burroughs was the belief that he was not sound in the faith; for Master Cotton Mather, after his execution, declared to the people that he was "no ordained minister," and called their attention to the fact that Satan often appeared as an angel of light. CHAPTER X. Bridget Bishop Condemned to Die. Salem, the habitation of peace, had become, by this time a pandemonium. The "afflicted children" were making accusations in every direction, and Mistress Ann Putnam, and many others, were imitating their example. To doubt was to be accused; but very few managed to keep their heads sufficiently in the whirlwind of excitement, even to be able to doubt. With the exception of Joseph Putnam, and his visitor, Ellis Raymond, there were very few, if any, open and outspoken doubters, and indignant censurers of the whole affair. Dulcibel Burton also, though in a gentler and less emphatic way, sided naturally with them, but, although she was much less violent in her condemnation, she provoked even more anger from the orthodox believers in the delusion. For Joseph Putnam, as belonging to one of the most influential and wealthy families in Salem, seemed to have some right to have an opinion. And Master Raymond was visiting at his house, and naturally would be influenced by him. Besides, he was only a stranger at the best; and therefore, not entirely responsible to them for his views. But Dulcibel was a woman, and it was outrageous that she, at her years, should set up her crude opinions against the authority of the ministers and the elders. Besides, Joseph Putnam was known to be a determined and even rather desperate young man when his passions were aroused, as they seldom were though, save in some just cause; and he had let it be known that it would be worth any person's life to attempt to arrest him. It was almost the universal habit of that day, to wear the belt and sword; and Messrs. Putnam and Raymond went thus constantly armed. Master Putnam also kept two horses constantly saddled in his stable, day and night, to escape with if necessary, into the forest, through which they might make their way to New York. For the people of that province, who did not admire their Puritan neighbors very much, received all such fugitives gladly, and gave them full protection. As for Master Raymond, although he saw that his position was becoming dangerous, he determined to remain, notwithstanding the period which he had fixed for his departure had long before arrived. His avowed reason given to Joseph Putnam, was that he was resolved to see the crazy affair through. His avowed reason, which Master Putnam perfectly understood, was to prosecute his suit to Dulcibel, and see her safely through the dangerous excitement also. "They have condemned Bridget Bishop to death," said Master Putnam, coming into the house one morning from a conversation with a neighbor. "I supposed they would," replied Master Raymond. "But how nobly she bore herself against such a mass of stupid and senseless testimony. Did you know her?" "I have often stopped at her Inn. A fine, free-spoken woman; a little bold in her manners, but nothing wrong about her." "Did you ever hear such nonsense as that about her tearing down a part of the meeting-house simply by looking at it? And yet there sat the best lawyers in the colony on the bench as her judges, and swallowed it all down as if it had been gospel." "And then those other stories of her appearing in people's bed-rooms, and vanishing away suddenly; and of her being responsible for the illness and death of her neighbors' children; what could be more absurd?" "And of the finding of puppets, made of rags and hogs' bristles, in the walls and crevices of her cellar! Really, it would be utterly contemptible if it were not so horrible." "Yes, she is to be executed on Gallows Hill; and next week! I can scarcely believe it, Master Raymond. If I could muster a score or two of other stout fellows, I would carry her off from the very foot of the gallows." "Oh, the frenzy has only begun, my friend," replied Raymond. "You know whose trial comes on next?" "How any one can say a word against Mistress Nurse--that lovely and venerable woman--passeth my comprehension," said Joseph Putnam's young wife, who had been a listener to the conversation, while engaged in some household duties. "My sister-in-law, Ann Putnam, seems to have a spite against that woman. I went to see her yesterday, and she almost foams at the mouth while talking of her." "The examination of Mistress Nurse before the magistrate comes off to-day. Shall we not attend it?" "Of course, but be careful of thy language, Friend Raymond. Do not let thy indignation run away with thy discretion." Raymond laughed outright, as did young Mistress Putnam. "This advice from you, Master Joseph! who art such a very model of prudence and cold-bloodedness! If thou wilt be only half as cautious and discreet as I am, we shall give no offence even to the craziest of them." CHAPTER XI. Examination of Rebecca Nurse. When they arrived at the village, the examination was in progress. Mistress Rebecca Nurse, the mother of a large family; aged, venerable, and bending now a little under the weight of years, was standing as a culprit before the magistrates, who doubtless had often met her in the social gatherings of the neighborhood. She was guarded by two constables, she who needed no guarding. Around, and as near her as they were allowed to stand, stood her husband and her grown-up sons and daughters. One of the strangest features of the time, as it strikes the reader of this day, was the peaceful submission to the lawful authorities practised by the husbands and fathers, and grown-up sons and brothers of the women accused. Reaching as the list of alleged witches did in a short time, to between one hundred and fifty and two hundred persons--nearly the whole of them members of the most respectable families--it is wonderful that a determined stand in their behalf was not the result. One hundred resolute men, resolved to sacrifice their lives if need be, would have put a stop to the whole matter. And if there had been even twenty men in Salem, like Joseph Putnam, the thing no doubt would have been done. And in the opinion of the present writer, such a course would have been far more worthy of praise, than the slavish submission to such outrages as were perpetrated under the names of law, justice and religion. The sons of these men, eighty years later, showed at Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill, that when Law and Peace become but grotesque masks, under which are hidden the faces of legalized injustice and tyranny, then the time has come for armed revolt and organized resistance. But such was the darkness and bigotry of the day in respect to religious belief, that the great majority of the people were mentally paralyzed by the accepted faith, so that they were not able in many respects to distinguish light from darkness. When an estimable man or woman was accused of being a witch, for the term was indifferently applied to both sexes, even their own married partners, their own children, had a more or less strong conviction that it might possibly be so. And this made the peculiar horror of it. In at least fifty cases, the accused confessed that they were witches, and sometimes accused others in turn. This was owing generally to the influence of their relatives, who implored them to confess; for to confess was invariably to be acquitted, or to be let off with simple imprisonment. But to return to poor Rebecca Nurse, haled without warning from her prosperous, happy home at the Bishop Farm, carried to jail, loaded with chains, and now brought up for the tragic farce of a judicial examination. In this case also, the account given in my friend's little book is amply confirmed by other records. Mistress Ann Putnam, Abigail Williams (the minister's niece), Elizabeth Hubbard and Mary Walcott, were the accusers. "Abigail Williams, have you been hurt by this woman?" said magistrate Hathorne. "Yes," replied Abigail. And then Mistress Ann Putnam fell to the floor in a fit; crying out between her violent spasms, that it was Rebecca Nurse who was then afflicting her. "What do you say to those charges?" The accused replied: "I can say before the eternal Father that I am innocent of any such wicked doings, and God will clear my innocence." Then a man named Henry Kenney rose, and said that Mistress Nurse frequently tormented him also; and that even since he had been there that day, he had been seized twice with an amazed condition. "The villain!" muttered Joseph Putnam to those around him, "if I had him left to me for a time, I would have him in an amazed condition!" "You are an unbeliever, and everybody knows it, Master Putnam," said one near him. "But we who are of the godly, know that Satan goes about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour." "Quiet there!" said one of the magistrates. Edward Putnam (another of the brothers) then gave in his evidence, saying that he had seen Mistress Ann Putnam, and the other accusers, grievously tormented again and again, and declaring that Rebecca Nurse was the person who did it. "These are serious charges, Mistress Nurse," said Squire Hathorne, "are they true?" "I have told you that they are false. Why, I was confined to my sick bed at the time it is said they occurred." "But did you not send your spectre to torment them?" "How could I? And I would not if I could." Here Mistress Putnam was taken with another fit. Worse than the other, which greatly affected the whole people. Coming to a little, she cried out: "Did you not bring the black man with you? Did you not tell me to tempt God and die? Did you not eat and drink the red blood to your own damnation?" These words were shrieked out so wildly, that all the people were greatly agitated and murmured against such wickedness. But the prisoner releasing her hand for a moment cried out, "Oh, Lord, help me!" "Hold her hands," some cried then, for the afflicted persons seemed to be grievously tormented by her. But her hands being again firmly held by the guards, they seemed comforted. Then the worthy magistrate Hathorne said, "Do you not see that when your hands are loosed these people are afflicted?" "The Lord knows," she answered, "that I have not hurt them." "You would do well if you are guilty to confess it; and give glory to God." "I have nothing to confess. I am as innocent as an unborn child." "Is it not strange that when you are examined, these persons should be afflicted thus?" "Yes, it is very strange." [Illustration: "The Lord knows that I haven't hurt them"] "Do you believe these afflicted persons are bewitched?" "I surely do think they must be." Weary of the proceedings and the excitement, the aged lady allowed her head to droop on one side. Instantly the heads of the accusers were bent the same way. Abigail Williams cried out, "Set up Mistress Nurse's neck, our necks will all be broken." The jailers held up the prisoner's neck; and the necks of all the accused were instantly made straight again. This was considered a marvelous proof; and produced a wonderful effect upon the magistrates and the people. Mistress Ann Putnam went into such great bodily agony at this time, charging it all upon the prisoner, that the magistrates gave her husband permission to carry her out of the house. Only then, when no longer in the sight of the prisoner, could she regain her peace. "Mistress Nurse was then recommitted to the jail in Salem, in order to further examination." "What deviltry is coming next?" said Joseph Putnam to his friend. Many of those around glared on the speaker, but he was well known to all of them as a daring--and when angered even a desperate young man--and they allowed him to say with impunity, freely what no one else could even have whispered. His son in after years, looked not into the wolf's eyes in the dark den with a sterner gaze, than he looked into the superstitious and vengeful wolves' eyes around him. "To think that a godly old woman like Mistress Nurse, should be tormented by this Devil's brood of witches, led on by that she-devil sister of mine, Ann Putnam." Many around heard him, but none cared to meet the young man's fierce eyes, as they blazed upon those that were nearest. "Do control yourself, my friend," whispered Master Raymond. "Preserve yourself for a time when your indignation may do some good." Then the constable brought in a little girl of about five years of age, Dorcas Good, a daughter of Sarah Good, who had been arrested on the complaint of Edward and Jonathan Putnam. The evidence against this little girl of five was overwhelming. Mistress Ann Putnam, Mercy Lewis, and Mary Walcott were the accusers--charging the innocent and pretty little creature with biting, pinching and choking them--the little girl smiling while they were giving their testimony. She was not old enough to understand what it was all about, and that even her life was in danger from these demoniacs. They absolutely pretended to show the marks of her little teeth in their arms. Then, after going through the usual convulsions, they shrieked out that she was running pins into them; and the pins were found on examination sticking into their bodies. The little girl was, as I have said, at first inclined to laugh at all the curious proceedings, and the spasms and contortions of the witnesses, but at last, seeing everyone so solemn and looking so wickedly at her, she began to cry; until Joseph Putnam went up to her and gave her some sweet cake to eat, which he had provided for his own luncheon and then, looking into his kind face, she began to smile again. The Magistrates frowned upon Master Putnam, as he did this, but he paid no attention to their frowns. And when the little girl was ordered back to jail as a prisoner to await her trial, he bent down and kissed her before she was led away by the constable. This was the end of the proceedings for that day and the crowd began to disperse. "This is a pretty day's work you have made of it, sister-in-law," said Joseph Putnam, striding up to his brother's wife. "You say that you are tormented by many devils, and I believe it. Now I want to give you, and all the Devil's brood around you, fair warning that if you dare to touch with your foul lies any one belonging to my house including the stranger within my gates, you shall answer it with your lives, in spite of all your judges and prisons." So saying, he glared at his two brothers, who made no reply, and walked out of the meeting-house in which this ungodly business had been transacted. "Oh, it is only Joe," said Thomas Putnam; "he always was the spoiled child of the family." His wife said nothing, but soon a hard, bitter smile took the place of the angry flush that the young man's words had produced. Dulcibel Burton was not one of his household, nor within his gates. CHAPTER XII. Burn Me, or Hang Me, I Will Stand in the Truth of Christ. After the trial and conviction of Bridget Bishop, the Special Court of seven Judges--a majority of whom were leading citizens of Boston, the Deputy Governor of the Province, acting as Chief-Justice--decided to take further counsel in this wonderful and important matter of the fathers of the church. So the Court took a recess, while it consulted the ministers of Boston and other places, respecting its duty in the case. The response of the ministers, while urging in general terms the importance of caution and circumspection, recommended the earnest and vigorous carrying on of the war against Satan and his disciples. Among the new victims, one of the most striking cases was that of George Jacobs and his grand-daughter Margaret. The former was a venerable-looking man, very tall, with long, thin white hair, who was compelled by his infirmities to support himself in walking with two staffs. Sarah Churchill, a chief witness, against him, was a servant in his family; and probably was feeding in this way some old grudge. "You accuse me of being a wizard," said the old man on his examination; "you might as well charge me with being a buzzard." They asked the accused to repeat the Lord's prayer. And Master Parris, the minister, who acted as a reporter, said "he could not repeat it right after many trials." "Well," said the brave old man finally, after they had badgered him with all kinds of nonsensical questions, "Well, burn me, or hang me, I will stand in the truth of Christ!" As his manly bearing was evidently producing an effect, the "afflicted girls" came out in full force the next day at the adjourned session. When he was brought in, they fell at once into the most grievous fits and screechings. "Who hurts you?" was asked, after they had recovered somewhat. "This man," said Abigail Williams, going off into another fit. "This is the man," averred Ann Putnam; "he hurts me, and wants me to write in the red book; and promises if I will do so, to make me as well as his grand-daughter." "Yes, this is the man," cried Mercy Lewis, "he almost kills me." "It is the one who used to come to me. I know him by his two staffs, with one of which he used to beat the life out of me," said Mary Walcott. Mercy Lewis for her part walked towards him; but as soon as she got near, fell into great fits. Then Ann Putnam and Abigail Williams "had each of them a pin stuck in their hands and they said it was done by this old Jacobs." The Magistrates took all this wicked acting in sober earnest; and asked the prisoner, "what he had to say to it?" "Only that it is false," he replied. "I know no more of it than the child that was born last night." But the honest old man's denial went of course, for nothing. Neither did Sarah Ingersoll's deposition made a short time afterwards; in which she testified that "Sarah Churchill came to her after giving her evidence, crying and wringing her hands, and saying that she has belied herself and others in saying she had set her hand to the Devil's book." She said that "they had threatened her that if she did not say it, they would put her in the dungeon along with Master Burroughs." And that, "if she told Master Noyes, the minister, but once that she had set her hand to the book, he would believe her; but if she told him the truth a hundred times, he would not believe her." The truth no doubt is that Master Noyes, Master Parris, Cotton Mather, and all the other ministers, with one or two exceptions, having committed themselves fully to the prosecution of the witches, would listen to nothing that tended to prove that the principal witnesses were deliberate and malicious liars; and that, so far as the other witnesses were concerned, they were grossly superstitious and deluded persons. No charity that is fairly clear-sighted, can cover over the evidence of the "afflicted circle" with the mantle of self-delusion. Self-delusion does not conceal pins, stick them into its own body, and charge the accused person with doing it, knowing that the accusation may be the prisoner's death. This was done repeatedly by Mistress Ann Putnam, and her Satanic brood of false accusers. Sarah Churchill was no worse than the others, judging by her remorse after she had helped to murder with her lying tongue her venerable master and we have in the deposition of Sarah Ingersoll, undoubted proof that she testified falsely. When Ann Putnam, Mercy Lewis and Mary Walcott all united in charging little Dorcas Good--five years old!--with biting, pinching and almost choking them; "showing the marks of her little teeth on their arms, and the pins sticking in their bodies, where they had averred she was piercing them"--can any sane, clear-minded man or woman suppose it was an innocent delusion, and not a piece of horribly wicked lying? When in open court some of the "afflicted" came out of their fits with "their wrists bound together, by invisible means," with "a real cord" so that "it could hardly be taken off without cutting," was there not only deception, but undeniable collusion of two or more in deception? When an iron spindle was used by an alleged "spectre" to torture a "sufferer," the said iron spindle not being discernible by the by-standers until it became visible by being snatched by the sufferer from the spectre's hand, was there any self-delusion there? Was it not merely wicked imposture and cunning knavery? I defy any person possessing in the least a judicial and accurate mind, to investigate the records of this witchcraft delusion without coming to the conclusion that the "afflicted girls," who led off in this matter, and were the principal witnesses, continually testified to what they knew to be utterly false. There is no possible excuse for them on the ground of "delusion." However much we may recoil from the sad belief that they testified in the large majority of cases to what they knew to be entirely false, the facts of the case compel us with an irresistible force to such an unhappy conclusion. When we are positively certain that a witness, in a case of life or death, has testified falsely against the prisoner again and again, is it possible that we can give him or her the benefit of even a doubt as to the animus of the testimony? The falsehoods I have referred to were cases of palpable, unmistakable and deliberate lying. And the only escape from considering it _wilful_ lying, is to make a supposition not much in accord with the temper of the present times, that, having tampered with evil spirits, and invoked the Devil continually during the long evenings of the preceding winter, the prince of powers of the air had at last come at their call, and ordered a legion of his creatures to take possession of the minds and bodies that they had so freely offered to him. For certainly there is no way of explaining the conduct of the "afflicted circle" of girls and women, than by supposing either that they were guilty of the most enormous wickedness, or else that they were "possessed with devils." CHAPTER XIII. Dulcibel in Danger. The terrible excitement of these days was enough to drive the more excitable portion of the inhabitants of Salem almost crazy. The work of the house and of the farm was neglected; a large number of suspected persons and their relatives were sunk in the deepest grief, the families of some of the imprisoned knew not where to get their daily food; for their property was generally taken possession of by the officers of the law at the time of the arrest, the accused being considered guilty until they were proved to be innocent. Upon conviction of a capital offence the property of the condemned was attainted, being confiscated by the state; and the constables took possession at once, in order that it might not be spirited away. And no one outside of the circle of the accusers knew whose turn might come next. Neither sex, nor age, nor high character, as we have seen, was a bar against the malice, or the wantonness of the "afflicted." The man or woman who had lived a righteous life for over eighty years, the little child who wondered what it all meant, the maiden whose only fault might be to have a jealous rival, all were alike in danger. Especially were those in peril, however, who dared to take the side of any of the accused, and express even the faintest disbelief in the justice of the legal proceedings, or the honesty of the witnesses. These would be surely singled out for punishment. Again and again, had this been done until the voices of all but the very boldest were effectually silenced. Those arrested now, as a general thing, would confess at once to the truthfulness of all the charges brought against them, and even invent still more improbable stories of their own, as this mollified the accusers, and they often would be let off with a solemn reprimand by the magistrates. Joseph Putnam and his male servants went constantly armed; and two horses were kept saddled day and night, in his stable. He never went to the village unaccompanied; and made no secret of his determination to resist the arrest of himself or, as he had phrased it, "any one within his gates," to the last drop of his blood. Living with the Goodman Buckley who had leased the Burton property, was a hired man named Antipas Newton. He was a good worker though now getting old, and had in one sense been leased with the place by Dulcibel's father. Antipas's history had been a sad one. Adopted when left an orphan by a benevolent farmer who had no children, he managed by diligence and strict economy to acquire by the age of thirty, quite a comfortable property of his own. Then the old couple that he called Father and Mother became converts to Quakerism. Fined and imprisoned, deprived of their property, and, after the expiration of their term of imprisonment, ordered to leave the colony, they had been "harbored" by the man for whom they had done so much in his early years. Antipas was a person of limited intelligence, but of strong affections and wide sympathies. Again and again, he harbored these persecuted ones, who despite their whippings and banishment would persist in returning to Salem. Finally, Antipas himself was heavily fined, and his property sold to pay the fines. His wife had died early, but a young daughter who kept his house in order, and who had failed in her attendance at the church which was engaged in persecuting her father, was also fined heavily. As her father's property was all gone, and she had no money of her own, she could not pay the fine, and was put in prison, to be sent to Barbados, and sold as a slave, that thus the fine might be collected. But the anguish, and the exposure of her prison, were too much for the young girl; and she died before means of transportation could be found. As a result of these persecutions, Antipas became demented. As his insanity grew evident, the prosecutions ceased; but he was still in danger of starvation, so few would give him employment, both on account of his impaired mind, and of the odium which attached to any friend of the abhorred Quakers. Captain Burton, Dulcibel's father, came to the village at this time. He had been one of the sea-captains who had indignantly refused to take the Southwick children, or any other of the Salem children, to Barbados; and he pitied the poor insane man, and gave him employment. Not only did he do this, but, as we have said, made it an article of the lease of his property, that the Buckleys should also keep Antipas as a farm servant. Antipas, to the general surprise of the villagers had proved to be an excellent servant, notwithstanding his insanity. Only on training days and other periods of excitement, did his insanity obtrude itself. At all other times he seemed to be a cheerful, simple-hearted, and very capable and industrious "hand." To Dulcibel, as was natural, Antipas always manifested the greatest devotion. Her little black mare was always groomed to perfection, he never being satisfied until he took a white linen handkerchief that he kept for the purpose, and, passing it over the mare's shining coat, saw that no stain or loose black hair remained on it. "You think that Mistress Dulcibel is an angel, do you not?" said one of the female servants to him about this time, a little scornfully. "No, I know what she is," he replied. "Shall I tell you--but if I do, you will not believe"--and he looked at the girl a little doubtfully. "Oh, yes, I will," said the girl. "Come here then and I will whisper it to you. I heard the minister read about her once, she is the woman that is 'clothed with the sun and has the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.'" "That is wicked, Antipas. If Master Parris heard that you said things like that, he would have you whipped and put in the stocks." "Master Parris? you mean Beelzebub! I know Beelzebub when I see him." And Antipas gave one of his unnatural, insane laughs, which were getting very frequent of late. For the general excitement was proving too much for Antipas. Fie stopped frequently in his work, and muttered to himself; and then laughed wildly, or shed tears. He talked about the witches and the Devil and evil spirits, and the strange things that he saw at night, in the insane fashion that characterized the "afflicted children." As for Dulcibel in these times, she kept pretty much to herself, going out very little. As she could not sympathize with the general gossip of the neighborhood, she remained at home, and consequently had very few visitors. Joseph Putnam called whenever he came to the village, which, as I have stated, was but seldom; and Ellis Raymond came every few days. Yes, it was a courtship, I suppose; but one of a very grave and serious character. The conversation generally turned upon the exciting events continually occurring, some new arrest, some new confession, some new and outrageously absurd charges. Master Raymond's hand, if anyone accosted him suddenly, instinctively sought the hilt of his rapier. He was better skilled in the use of that weapon than was usual, and had no fear that he should be unable to escape from the constables, if not taken at a disadvantage. Still, as that would compel him to fly into the woods, and as it would separate him from Dulcibel, he had been very careful not to express in public his abhorrence of all the recent proceedings. I am afraid that he was guilty of considerable dissimulation, even paying his court to some of the "afflicted" maidens when he had the opportunity, with soft words and handsome presents; and trying in this way to enlist a party in his behalf, in case he or any of his friends should need supporters. Joseph Putnam censured him one day for his double dealing, which was a thing not only out of Master Joseph's line, but one which his frank and outspoken nature rendered it very difficult for him to practise. But Raymond with his references to King David's behavior towards Achish, King of Gath, and to certain other scripture, especially Paul's being "all things to all men that he might save all," was rather too weighty for Joseph, whose forte was sensible assertion rather than ingenious argument. And so Master Raymond persevered in his course, feeling no more compunction in deceiving the Salemites, as he said to himself, than he would in deceiving and cheating a pack of savage wolves, who were themselves arrayed in sheep's clothing. Jethro Sands had of late shown a disposition to renew his attentions to Dulcibel; but, after two or three visits, in the last of which he had given the maiden the desired opportunity, she had plainly intimated to him that the old state of affairs between them could never be restored. "I know the reason too," said Jethro, angrily "it is all owing to that English popinjay, who rides about as if we colonists were not fit to dust his pretty coat for him." "He is a gentleman, and a friend of mine," replied Dulcibel warmly. "Why do you not say a lover of yours, at once?" "You have no right to talk to me in that manner. I will not endure it." "You will not--how will you help it?" He was now thoroughly angry, and all his native coarseness came to the surface. "I will show you," said Dulcibel, the Norse blood of her father glowing in her face. "Good evening, Sir!" and she left the room. Jethro had not expected such a quiet, but effective answer. He sat twirling his thumbs, for awhile, hoping that she would return. But realizing at last that she would not, he took his departure in a towering anger. Of course this was the last of his visits. But Dulcibel had made a deadly enemy. It was unfortunate, for the maiden already had many who disliked her among the young people of the village. She was a superior person for one thing, and "gave herself airs," as some said. To be superior, without having wealth or an acknowledged high social position, is always to be envied, and often to be hated. Then again, Dulcibel dressed with more richness and variety of costume than was usual in the Puritan villages. This set many of the women, both young and old, against her. Her scarlet bodice, especially, was a favorite theme for animadversion; some even going so far as to call her ironically "the scarlet woman." It is curious how unpopular a perfectly amiable, sweet-tempered and sweet-tongued maiden may often become, especially with her own sex, because of their innate feeling that she is not, in spite of all her courteous endeavors, really one of them. It is an evil day for the swan when she finds herself the only swan among a large flock of geese. Dulcibel's antecedents also were not as orthodox as they might be. Her mother, it was granted, was "pious," and of a "godly" connection; but her father, as he had himself once said, "had no religion to speak of." He had further replied to the question, asked him when he first came to Salem, as to whether he was "a professor of religion," that he was "only a sea captain, and had no other profession." And a certain freedom of thought characterized Dulcibel, that she could scarcely have derived from her pious mother. In fact, it was something like the freedom of the winds and of the clouds, blowing where they liked; and had been probably caught up by her father in his many voyages over the untrammeled seas. At first Dulcibel had been rather impressed by the sermons of Master Parris and Master Noyes and the other ministers, to the effect that Satan was making a deadly assault upon the "saints," in revenge for their interference with his hitherto undisputed domination of the new world. But the longer she thought about it, the more she was inclined to adopt Joseph Putnam's theory, that his sister-in-law and niece and the other "afflicted" persons were possessed by devils. She inclined to this view in preference even to what she knew was Ellis Raymond's real conviction, that they were a set of hysterical and vicious girls and women who had rendered themselves half-insane by tampering for a whole winter with their nervous and spiritual organizations; until they could scarcely now distinguish the true from the untrue, the real from the unreal, good from evil, or light from darkness. "They have become reprobates and given over to an evil mind," said Master Raymond to her one day; clothing his thought as nearly as he could in scriptural language, in order to commend it to her. "Yes, this seems to be a reasonable explanation of their wicked conduct," replied Dulcibel. "But I think after all, that it amounts to about the same thing as Joseph Putnam says, only that his is the stronger and more satisfactory statement." And thinking of it, Master Raymond had to come to the same conclusion. His own view and that of his friends were about the same, only they had expressed themselves in different phrases. CHAPTER XIV. Bad News. The blow fell at last, and where they might have expected it. As Joseph Putnam said afterwards, "Why did I not bring them out to my house? They would not have dared to take them from under my roof, and they could not have done it if they had dared." One of his servants had been sent to the village on an errand; he had not performed his errand, but he had hurried back at once with the news. Dulcibel Burton had been arrested the previous evening, about nine o'clock, on the charge of being a witch. Antipas Newton had also been arrested. Both had been taken to prison, and put in irons. A desperate, determined look came into the faces of the two men as they gathered every word the servant had to tell. Young Mistress Putnam burst into tears. But the men dashed a tear or two from their eyes, and began to collect their thoughts. It was not weeping but stern daring, that would be needed before this thing was through. The prisoners were to be brought up that afternoon for examination. "I have my two men, who will follow wherever I lead them," said Master Putnam. "That makes four of us. Shall we carry her off from under their very eyes?" And his face glowed--the fighting instinct of his race was very strong within him. "It might not succeed, those men are neither cowards nor babies," answered his guest. "Besides, it would lead probably to your banishment and the confiscation of your property. No, we must have the wisdom of the serpent, as well as the boldness of the lion." "The result of the examination may be favorable, so young and good and beautiful as she is," said Mistress Putnam. "They lap their tongues in the blood of lambs, and say it is sweet as honey," replied her husband, shaking his head. "No, they will show no mercy; but we must try to match them." "Yes, and with as little hazard and cost to you, my noble friend, as possible," said Master Raymond. "Let me act, and take all the risk. They cannot get hold of my property; and I would just as lief live in New York or Philadelphia or England as among this brood of crazy vipers." "That is wise counsel, Joseph," said his wife. "Oh, I suppose it is," he answered emphatically. "But I hate wise counsel." "Still, my good friend, you must admit that, as Dulcibel betrothed herself to me only two days ago, I am the one to take the greatest risk in this matter." "Indeed!" said Mistress Putnam. "I knew it would be so; and I told Joseph it would be, only yesterday." "I give you joy of such a mistress!" cried Master Putnam, grasping his friend's hand. "Yes, I grant now your right of precedence in this danger, and I will follow your lead--yes, to the death!" "I hold you to that," said Master Raymond. "Remember you are pledged to follow my lead. Now, whatever I do, do not wonder, much less express any wonder. For this is war, and I have a right to meet craft with craft, and guile with guile. Depend upon it, I will save her, or perish with her." CHAPTER XV. The Arrest of Dulcibel and Antipas. The arrest of Dulcibel had been entirely unexpected to herself and the Buckleys. Dulcibel indeed had wondered, when walking through the village in the morning, that several persons she knew had seemed to avoid meeting her. But she was too full of happiness in her recent betrothal to take umbrage or alarm at such an unimportant circumstance. A few months now, and Salem, she hoped, would see her no more forever. She knew, for Master Raymond had told her, that there were plenty of places in the world where life was reasonably gay and sunny and hopeful; not like this dull valley of the shadow of death in which she was now living. Raymond's plan was to get married; sell her property, which might take a few months, more or less; and then sail for England, to introduce his charming wife to a large circle of relatives. Dulcibel had been reading a book that Raymond had brought to her--a volume of Shakespeare's plays--a prohibited book among the Puritan fathers, and which would have been made the text for one of Master Parris's most denunciatory sermons if he had known that it was in the village. Having finished "Macbeth" she laid the book down upon the table and began playing with her canary, holding it to her cheek, putting its bill to her lips, and otherwise fondling it. While she was thus engaged, she began to have the uncomfortable feeling which sensitive persons often have when some one is watching them; and turning involuntarily to the window which looked out on a garden at the side of the house, she saw in the dim light that dark faces, with curious eyes, seemed nearly to fill up the lower half of the casement. In great surprise, and with a sudden tremor, she rose quickly from the seat; and, as she did so, the weird faces and glistening eyes disappeared, and two constables, attended by a crowd of the villagers, entered the room. One of these walked at once to her side, and seizing her by the arm said, "I arrest you, Dulcibel Burton, by the authority of Magistrate Hathorne. Come along with me." "What does all this mean, friend Herrick?" said Goodman Buckley, coming into the room. "It means," said the constable, "that this young woman is no better than the other witches, who have been joining hand with Satan against the peace and dignity of this province." Then, turning to Dame Buckley, "Get her a shawl and bonnet, goodwife; if you do not wish her to go out unprotected in the night's cold." "A witch--what nonsense!" said Dame Buckley. "Nonsense, is it?" said the other constable. "What is this?" taking up the book from the table. "A book of plays! profane and wicked stage plays, in Salem village! You had better hold your peace, goodwife; or you may go to prison yourself for harboring such licentious devices of Satan in your house." Goodwife Buckley started and grew pale. A book of wicked stage-plays under her roof! She could make no reply, but went off without speaking to pack up a bundle of the accused maiden's clothing. "See here!" continued the constable, opening the book, "All about witches, as I thought! He-cat and three other witches! 'Round about the cauldron go: In the poisoned entrails throw.' It is horrible!" "Put the accursed book in the fire, Master Taunton," said Herrick. There was a small fire burning on the hearth, for the evening was a little cool, and the other constable threw the book amidst the live coals; but was surprised to see that it did not flame up rapidly. "That is witchcraft, if there ever was witchcraft!" said Jethro Sands, who was at the front of the crowd. "See, it will not burn. The Devil looks out for his own." "Yes, we shall have to stay here all night, if we wait for that book to burn up," said Master Herrick. "Now if it had been a Bible, or a Psalm-book, it would have been consumed by this time." "My father told me," said one of the crowd, "that they were once six weeks trying to burn up some witch's book in Holland, and then had to tear each leaf separately before they could burn it." "Where is the yellow bird--her familiar--that she was sending on some witch's errand when we were watching at the window?" said another of the crowd. "Oh, it's not likely you will find the yellow bird," replied Herrick. "It is halfway down to hell by this time." "No, there it is!" cried Jethro Sands, pointing to a ledge over the door, where the canary-bird had flown in its fright. "Kill it! kill the familiar! Kill the devil's imp!" came in various voices, the angry tones being not without an inflection of fear. Several pulled out their rapiers. Jethro was the quickest. He made a desperate lunge at the little creature, and impaled it on the point of his weapon. Dulcibel shook off the hold of the constable and sprang forward. "Oh, my pretty Cherry," she cried, taking the dead bird from the point of the rapier. "You wretch! to harm an innocent little creature like that!" and she smoothed the feathers of the bird and kissed its little head. "Take it from her! kill the witch!" cried some rude women in the outer circles of the crowd. "Yes, mistress, this is more than good Christian people can be expected to endure," said constable Herrick, sternly, snatching the bird from her and tossing it into the fire. "Let us see if the imp will burn any quicker than the book." "Ah, she forgot to charm it," said the other constable, as the little feathers blazed up in a blue flame. "Yes, but note the color," said Jethro. "No Christian bird ever blazed in that color." "Neither they ever did!" echoed another, and they looked into each other's faces and shook their heads solemnly. At this moment Antipas Newton was led to the door of the room, in the custody of another officer. The old man seemed to be taking the whole proceeding very quietly and patiently, as the Quakers always did. But the moment he saw Dulcibel weeping, with Herrick's grasp upon her arm, his whole demeanor changed. "What devil's mischief is this?" cried the demented man; and springing like an enraged lion upon Master Herrick, he dashed him against the opposite wall, tore his constable's staff from his hands and laying the staff around him wildly and ferociously cleared the room of everybody save Dulcibel and himself in less time than I have taken to tell it. Jethro stepped forward with his drawn rapier to cover the retreat of the constables; but shouting, "the sword of the Lord and of Gideon!" the deranged man, with the stout oaken staff, dashed the rapier from Jethro's hand, and administered to him a sounding whack over the head, which made the blood come. Then he picked up the rapier and throwing the staff behind him, laughed wildly as he saw the crowd, constable and all, tumbling out of the door of the next room into the front garden of the house as if Satan himself in very deed, were after them. "I will teach them how they abuse my pretty little Dulcibel," said the now thoroughly demented man, laughing grimly. "Come on, ye imps of Satan, and I will toast you at the end of my fork," he cried, flourishing Jethro's rapier, whose red point, crimson with the blood of the canary-bird, seemed to act upon the mind of the old man as a spark of fire upon tow. "Antipas," said Dulcibel, coming forward and gazing sadly into the eyes of her faithful follower, "is it not written, 'Put up thy sword; for he that takes the sword shall perish by the sword'? Give me the weapon!" The old man gazed into her face, at first wonderingly; then, with the instinct of old reverence and obedience, he handed the rapier to her, crossed his muscular arms over his broad breast, bowed his grisly head, and stood submissively before her. "You can return now safely," Dulcibel called out to the constables. They came in, at first a little warily. "He is insane; but the spell is over now for the present. But treat him tenderly, I pray you. When he is in one of these fits, he has the strength of ten men." The constables could not help being impressed favorably by the maiden's conduct; and they treated her with a certain respect and tenderness which they had not previously shown, until they had delivered her, and the afterwards entirely humble and peaceful Antipas, to the keeper of Salem prison. But the crowd said to one another as they sought their houses: "What a powerful witch she must be, to calm down that maniac with one word." While others replied, "But he is possessed with a devil; and she does it because her power is of the devil." They did not remember that this was the very course of reasoning used on a somewhat similar occasion against the Savior himself in Galilee! CHAPTER XVI. Dulcibel in Prison. In the previous cases of alleged witchcraft to which I have alluded, the details given in my manuscript volume were fully corroborated, even almost to the minutest particulars, by official records now in existence. But in what I have related, and am about to relate, relative to Dulcibel Burton, I shall have to rely entirely upon the manuscript volume. Still, as there is nothing there averred more unreasonable and absurd than what is found in the existing official records, I see no reason to doubt the entire truthfulness of the story. In fact, it would be difficult to imagine grosser and more ridiculous accusations than were made by Mistress Ann Putnam against that venerable and truly devout and Christian matron, Rebecca Nurse. When Dulcibel and Antipas, in the custody of four constables, reached the Salem jail, it was about eleven o'clock at night. The jailor, evidently had expected them; for he threw open the door at once. He was a stout, strong-built man, with not a bad countenance for a jailer; but seemed thoroughly imbued with the prevailing superstition, judging by the harsh manner in which he received the prisoners. "I've got two strong holes for these imps of Satan; bring 'em along!" The jail was built of logs, and divided inside into a number of small rooms or cells. In each of these cells was a narrow bedstead and a stone jug and slop bucket. Antipas was hustled into one cell, and, after being chained, the door was bolted upon him. Then Dulcibel was taken into another, though rather larger cell, and the jailor said, "Now she will not trouble other people for a while, my masters." "Are you not going to put irons on her, Master Foster?" said Herrick. "Of course I am. But I must get heavier chains than those to hold such a powerful witch as she is. Trust her to me, Master Herrick. She'll be too heavy to fly about on her broomsticks by the time I have done with her." Then they all went out and Dulcibel heard the heavy bolt shoot into its socket, and the voices dying away as the men went down the stairs. She groped her way to the bed in the darkness, sat down upon it and burst into tears. It was like a change from Paradise into the infernal regions. A few hours before and she had been musing in an ecstasy of joy over her betrothal, and dreaming bright dreams of the future, such perhaps as only a maiden can dream in the rapture of her first love. Now she was sitting in a prison cell, accused of a deadly crime, and her life and good reputation in the most imminent danger. One thing alone buoyed her up--the knowledge that her lover was fully aware of her innocence; and that he and Joseph Putnam would do all that they could do in her behalf. But then the sad thought came, that to aid her in any way might be only to bring upon themselves a similar accusation. And then, with a noble woman's spirit of self-sacrifice, she thought: "No, let them not be brought into danger. Better, far better, that I should suffer alone, than drag down my friends with me." Here she heard the noise of the bolt being withdrawn, and saw the dim light of the jailer's candle. As the jailer entered he threw down some heavy irons in the corner of the room. Then, he closed the door behind him, and came up to the unhappy girl. He laid his hand upon her shoulder and said: "You little witch!" Something in the tone seemed to strike upon the maiden's ear as if it were not unfamiliar to her; and she looked up hastily. "Do you not remember me, little Dulcy? Why I rocked you on my foot in the old Captain's house in Boston many a day." "Is it not uncle Robie?" said the girl. She had not seen him since she was four years old. The jailer smiled. "Of course it is," he replied, "just uncle Robie. The old captain never went to sea that Robie Foster did not go as first mate. And a blessed day it was when I came to be first mate of this jail-ship; though I never thought to see the old captain's bonnie bird among my boarders." "And do you think I really am a witch, uncle Robie?" "Of course ye are. A witch of the worst kind," replied Robie, with a chuckle. "Now, when I come in here tomorrow morning nae doobt I will find all your chains off. It is just sae with pretty much all the others. I cannot keep them chained, try my best and prettiest." "And Antipas?" "Oh, he will just be like all the rest of them, doobtless. He is a powerful witch, and half a Quaker, besides." "But do you really believe in witches, uncle Robie?" "What do these deuced Barebones Puritans know about witches, or the devil, or anything else? There is only one true church, Mistress Dulcibel. I have sa mooch respect for the clergy as any man; but I don't take my sailing orders from a set of sourfaced old pirates." Then, leaving her a candle and telling her to keep up a stout heart, the jailer left the cell; and Dulcibel heard the heavy bolt again drawn upon her, with a much lighter heart, than before. Examining the bundle of clothes that Goodwife Buckley had made up, she found that nothing essential to her comfort had been forgotten, and she soon was sleeping as peacefully in her prison cell as if she were in her own pretty little chamber. CHAPTER XVII. Dulcibel before the Magistrates. The next afternoon the meeting-house at Salem village was crowded to its utmost capacity; for Dulcibel Burton and Antipas Newton were to be brought before the worshipful magistrates, John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin. These worthies were not only magistrates, but persons of great note and influence, being members of the highest legislative and judicial body in the Province of Massachusetts Bay. Among the audience were Joseph Putnam and Ellis Raymond; the former looking stern and indignant, the latter wearing an apparently cheerful countenance, genial to all that he knew, and they were many; and especially courteous and agreeable to Mistress Ann Putnam, and the "afflicted" maidens. It was evident that Master Raymond was determined to preserve for himself the freedom of the village, if complimentary and pleasant speeches would effect it. It would not do to be arrested or banished, now that Dulcibel was in prison. When the constable, Joseph Herrick, brought in Dulcibel, he stated that having made "diligent search for images and such like," they had found a "yellow bird," of the kind that witches were known to affect; a wicked book of stage-plays, which seemed to be about witches, especially one called "he-cat"; and a couple of rag dolls with pins stuck into them. "Have you brought them?" said Squire Hathorne. "We killed the yellow bird and threw it and the wicked book into the fire." "You should not have done that; you should have produced them here." "We can get the book yet; for it was lying only partly burned near the back-log. It would not burn, all we could do to it." "Of course not. Witches' books never burn," said Squire Hathorne. "Here are the images," said a constable, producing two little rag-babies, that Dulcibel was making for a neighbor's children. The crowd looked breathlessly on as "these diabolical instruments of torture" were placed upon the table before the magistrates. "Dulcibel Burton, stand up and look upon your accusers," said Squire Hathorne. Dulcibel had sunk upon a bench while the above conversation was going on--she felt overpowered by the curious and malignant eyes turned upon her from all parts of the room. Now she rose and faced the audience, glancing around to see one loved face. At last her eyes met his; he was standing erect, even proudly; his arms crossed over his breast, his face composed and firm, his dark eyes glowing and determined. He dared not utter a word, but he spoke to her from the inmost depths of his soul: "Be firm, be courageous, be resolute!" This was what Raymond meant to say; and this is what Dulcibel, with her sensitive and impassioned nature, understood him to mean. And from that moment a marked change came over her whole appearance. The shrinking, timid girl of a moment before stood up serene but heroic, fearless and undaunted; prepared to assert the truth, and to defy all the malice of her enemies, if need be, to the martyr's death. And she had need of all her courage. For, before three minutes had passed--Squire Hathorne pausing to look over the deposition on which the arrest had been made--Mistress Ann Putnam shrieked out, "Turn her head away, she is tormenting us! See, her yellow-bird is whispering to her!" And with that, she and her little daughter Ann, and Abigail Williams and Sarah Churchill and Leah Herrick and several others, flung themselves down on the floor in apparent convulsions. "Oh, a snake is stinging me!" cried Leah Herrick. "Her black horse is trampling on my breast!" groaned Sarah Churchill. "Make her look away; turn her head!" cried several in the crowd. And one of the constables caught Dulcibel by the arm, and turned her around roughly. "This is horrible!" cried Thomas Putnam--"and so young and fair-looking, too!" "Ah, they are the worst ones, Master Putnam," said his sympathetic friend, the Rev. Master Parris. "She looks young and pretty, but she may really be a hundred years old," said deacon Snuffles. Quiet at last being restored, Magistrate Hathorne said: "Dulcibel Burton, why do you torment Mistress Putnam and these others in this grievous fashion?" "I do not torment them," replied Dulcibel calmly, but a little scornfully. "Who does torment them, then?" "How should I know--perhaps Satan." "What makes you suppose that Satan torments them?" "Because they tell lies." "Do you know that Satan cannot torment these people except through the agency of other human beings?" "No, I do not." "Well, he cannot--our wisest ministers are united upon that. Is it not so, Master Parris?" "That is God's solemn truth," was the reply. "Who is it that torments you, Mistress Putnam?" continued Squire Hathorne, addressing Mistress Ann Putnam, who had sent so many already to prison and on the way to death. Mistress Putnam was angered beyond measure at Dulcibel's intimation that she and her party were instigated and tormented directly by the devil. And yet she could not, if she would, bear falser witness than she already had done against Rebecca Nurse and other women of equally good family and reputation. But at this appeal of the Magistrate, she flung her arms into the air, and spoke with the vehemence and excitement of a half-crazy woman. "It is she, Dulcibel Burton. She was a witch from her very birth. Her father sold her to Satan before she was born, that he might prosper in houses and lands. She has the witch's mark--a snake--on her breast, just over her heart. I know it, because goodwife Bartley, the midwife, told me so three years ago last March. Midwife Bartley is dead; but have a jury of women examine her, and you will see that it is true." At this, as all thought it, horrible charge, a cold thrill ran through the crowd. They all had heard of witch-marks, but never of one like this--the very serpent, perhaps, which had deluded Eve. Joseph Putnam smiled disdainfully. "A set of stupid, superstitious fools!" he muttered through his teeth. "Half the De Bellevilles had that mark."[1] [Footnote 1: "Most part of this noble lineage carried upon their body for a natural birth-mark, from their mother's womb, a snake."--_North_.] "I will have that looked into," said Squire Hathorne. "In what shape does the spectre come, Mistress Putnam?" "In the shape of a yellow-bird. She whispers to it who it is that she wants tormented, and it comes and pecks at my eyes." Here she screamed out wildly, and began as if defending her eyes from an invisible assailant. "It is coming to me now," cried Leah Herrick, striking out fiercely. "Oh, do drive it away!" shrieked Sarah Churchill, "it will put out our eyes." There was a scene of great excitement, several men drawing their swords and pushing and slashing at the places where they supposed the spectral bird might be. Leah Herrick said the spectre that hurt her came oftenest in the shape of a small black horse, like that which Dulcibel Burton was known to keep and ride. Everybody supposed, she said, that the horse was itself a witch, for it was perfectly black, with not a white hair on it, and nobody could ride it but its mistress. Here Sarah Churchill said she had seen Dulcibel Burton riding about twelve o'clock one night, on her black horse, to a witches' meeting. Ann Putnam, the child, said she had seen the same thing. One curious thing about it was that Dulcibel had neither a saddle nor a bridle to ride with. She thought this was very strange; but her mother told her that witches always rode in that manner. Here the two ministers of Salem, Rev. Master Parris and Rev. Master Noyes, said that this was undeniably true, that it was a curious fact that witches never used saddles nor bridles. Master Noyes explaining further that there was no necessity for such articles, as the familiar was instantly cognizant of every slightest wish or command of the witch to whom he was subject, and going thus through the air, there being no rocks or gullies or other rough places, there was no necessity of a saddle. Both the magistrates and the people seemed to be very much instructed by the remarks of these two godly ministers. That "pious and excellent young man," Jethro Sands, here came forward and testified as follows: He had been at one time on very intimate terms with the accused; but her conduct on one occasion was so very singular that he declined thereafter to keep company with her. Hearing one day that she had gone to Master Joseph Putnam's, he had walked up the road to meet her on her return to the village. He looked up after walking about a mile, and saw her coming towards him on a furious gallop. There seemed to have been a quarrel of some kind between her and her familiar, for it would not stop all she could do to it. As she came up to him she snatched a rod that he had cut in the woods, out of his hand, and that moment the familiar stopped and became as submissive as a pet dog. He could not understand what it meant, until it suddenly occurred to him that the rod was a branch of witch-hazel! Here the audience drew a long breath, the whole thing was satisfactorily explained. Every one knew the magical power of witch-hazel.[2] [Footnote 2: This and many other passages, as the reader will notice, are quoted verbatim from the manuscript volume.] Jethro further testified that Mistress Dulcibel freely admitted to him that her horse was a witch; never speaking of the mare in fact but as a "little witch." As might be expected, the horse was a most vicious animal, worth nothing to anybody save one who was a witch himself. He thought it ought to be stoned, or otherwise killed, at once. The Rev. Master Noyes suggested that if it were handed over to his reverend brother Parris, he might be able, by a course of religious exercises, to cast out the evil spirit and render the animal serviceable. The apostles and disciples, it would be remembered, often succeeded in casting out evil spirits; though sometimes, we are told, they lamentably failed. The magistrates here consulted a few minutes, and Squire Hathorne then ordered that the black mare should be handed over to the Rev. Master Parris for his use, and that he might endeavor to exorcise the evil spirit that possessed it. Dulcibel had regarded with calm and serious eyes the concourse around her while this wild evidence was being given. Notwithstanding the peril of her position, she could not avoid smiling occasionally at the absurdity of the charges made against her; while at other times her brow and cheeks glowed with indignation at the maliciousness of her accusers. Then she thought, how could I ever have injured these neighbors so seriously that they have been led to conspire together to take my life? Oh, if I had never come to Salem, to a place so overflowing with malice, evil-speaking and all uncharitableness! Where there was so much sanctimonious talk about religion, and such an utter absence of it in those that prated the most of its possession. Down among the despised Quakers of Pennsylvania there was not one-half as much talking about religion but three times as much of that kindly charity which is its essential life. "Dulcibel Burton," said Squire Hathorne, "you have heard what these evidence against you; what answer can you make to them?" Blood will assert itself. The daughter of the old sea-captain, himself of Norse descent on the mother's side, felt her father's spirit glowing in her full veins. "The charges that have been made are too absurd and ridiculous for serious denial. The 'yellow bird' is my canary bird, Cherry, given me by Captain Alden when we lived in Boston. He brought it home with him from the West Indies. Ask him whether it is a familiar. My black horse misbehaved on that afternoon Jethro Sands tells of, as I told him at the time; simply because I had no whip. When he gave me his switch, the vixenish animal came at once into subjection to save herself a good whipping. It was not a hazel switch, his statement is false, and he knows it, it was a maple one." "And you mean to say, I suppose," shrieked out Mistress Ann Putnam, "that you have no witch-mark either; that you do not carry the devil's brand of a snake over your heart?" "I have some such mark, but it is a birth-mark, and not a witch-mark. It is a simple curving line of red," and the girl blushed crimson at being compelled to such a reference to a personal peculiarity. But she faltered not in her speech, though her tones were more indignant than before. "It is not a peculiarity of mine, but of my mother's family. Some say that a distant ancestor was once frightened by a large snake coming into her chamber; and her child was born with this mark upon her breast. That is all of it. There is no necessity of any examination, for I admit the charge." "Yes," screamed Mistress Putnam again, "your ancestress too was a noted witch. It runs in the family. Go away with you!" she cried striking apparently at something with her clenched hand. "It is her old great grandmother! See, there she is! Off! Off! She is trying to choke me!" endeavoring seemingly to unclasp invisible hands from her throat. The other "afflicted" ones joined in the tumult. With one it was the "yellow bird" pecking at her eyes, with another the black horse rearing up and striking her with its hoofs. Leah Herrick cried that Dulcibel's "spectre" was choking her. "Hold her hands still!" ordered Squire Hathorne, and a constable sprang to each side of the accused maiden and held her arms and hands in a grasp of iron. Joseph Putnam made an exclamation that almost sounded like an oath, and made a step forward; but a firm hand was laid upon his shoulder. "Be patient!" whispered Ellis Raymond, though his own mouth was twitching considerably. "We are the anvil now; wait till our turn comes to be sledgehammer!" Such a din and babel as the "afflicted" kept up! By the curious power of sympathy it affected the crowd almost to madness. If Dulcibel looked at them, they cried she was tormenting them. If she looked upward in resignation to Heaven, they also stared upwards with fixed, stiff necks. If she leaned her head one side they did the same, until it seemed as if their necks would be broken; and the jailers forced up Dulcibel's neck with their coarse, dirty hands. Dulcibel had not attended any of the other examinations, but similar demonstrations on the part of the "afflicted" had been described to her. It was very different, however, to hear of such things and to experience them in her own person. And if she had been at all a nervous and less healthy young woman, she might have been overcome by them, and even led to admit, as so many others had admitted under similar influences, that she really was a witch, and compelled by her master, the devil, could not help tormenting these poor victims. "Why do you not cease this?" at last cried Squire Hathorne, sternly and wrathfully. "Cease what?" she replied indignantly. "Tormenting these poor, suffering children and women!" "You see I am not tormenting them. Bid these men unloose my hands, they are hurting me." "They say your spectre and your familiar are tormenting them." "They are bearing false witness against me." "Who does hurt them then?" "Their master, the devil, I suppose and his imps." "Why should he hurt them?" "Because they are liars, and bear false witness; being hungry for innocent blood." The spirit of the free-thinking, free-spoken old sea-captain--nurtured by the free winds and the free waves for forty years--was fully alive now in his daughter. A righteous, holy indignation at the abominable farce that was going on with all its gross lying and injustice had taken possession of her, and she cared no longer for the opinions of any one around her, and thought not even of her lover looking on, but only of truth and justice. "Yes, they are possessed with devils--being children of their father, the devil!" she continued scornfully. "And they shall have their reward. As for you, Ann Putnam, in seven years from this day I summon you to meet those you have slain with your wicked, lying tongue, at the bar of Almighty God! It shall be a long dying for you!" Then, seeing Thomas Putnam by his wife's side, "And you, Thomas Putnam, you puppet in a bad woman's hands, chief aider and abettor of her wicked ways, you shall die two weeks before her, to make ready for her coming! And you," turning to the constables on each side of her, "for your cruel treatment of innocent women, shall die by this time next year!" The constables loosened their grasp of her hands and shrank back in dismay. The "afflicted" suddenly hushed their cries and regained their composure, as they saw the accused maiden's eyes, lit up with the wildness of inspiration, glancing around their circle with lightning flashes that might strike at any moment. Even Squire Hathorne's wine-crimsoned face paled, lest she would turn around and denounce him too. Even if she were a witch, witches it was known sometimes spoke truly. And when she slowly turned and looked upon him, the haughty judge was ready to sink to the floor. "As for you, John Hathorne, for your part in these wicked doings," here she paused as if waiting to hear a supernatural voice, while the crowded meeting-house was quiet as a tomb--"No! you are only grossly deluded; you shall not die. But a curse shall be upon you and your descendants for a hundred years. They shall not prosper. Then a Hathorne shall arise who shall repudiate you and all your wicked works, and the curse shall pass away!" Squire Hathorne regained his courage the instant she said he should not die, little he cared for misfortunes that might come upon his descendants. "Off with the witch to prison--we have heard enough!" he cried hoarsely. "Tell the jailer to load her well with irons, hands and feet; and give her nothing to eat but bread and water of repentance. She is committed for trial before the special court, in her turn, and at the worshipful judges' convenience." CHAPTER XVIII. Well, What Now? The crowd drew long breaths as they emerged from the meeting-house. This was the first time that the accused had fully turned upon the accusers. It was a pity that it had not been done before; because such was the superstition of the day, that to have your death predicted by one who was considered a witch was no laughing matter. The blood ran cold even in Mistress Ann Putnam's veins, as she thought of Dulcibel's prediction; and the rest of the "afflicted" inwardly congratulated themselves that they had escaped her malediction, and resolved that they would not be present at her trial as witnesses against her, if they could possibly avoid it. But then that might not be so easy. Even the crowd of beholders were a little more careful in the utterance of their opinions about Dulcibel than they had been relative to the other accused persons. Not that they had much doubt as to the maiden's being a born witch--the serpent-mark seemed to most of them a conclusive proof of that--but what if one of those "spectres," the "yellow bird" or the uncontrollable "black mare" should be near and listening to what they were even then saying? "What do I think about it?" said one of the crowd to his companion. "Why I think that if he who sups with the devil should have a long spoon, he who abuses a witch should be certain her yellow bird is not listening above his left shoulder," and he gave a quick glance in the direction alluded to, while half of those near him, as they heard his warning words, did the same. And there was not much talking against Dulcibel after this, among that portion of the villagers. Ellis Raymond had heard this speech as he walked silently out of the meeting-house with Joseph Putnam, and a grim smile flitted over his face. He felt prouder than ever of his beautiful betrothed. He was not a man who admired amazons or other masculine women, such, as in these days, we call "strong-minded;" he liked a woman to keep in her woman's sphere, such as the Creator had marked out for her by making her a woman; but circumstances may rightly overrule social conventions, and demand action suitable to the emergency. Standing at bay, among a pack of howling wolves, the heroic is a womanly as well as manly quality; and the gun and the knife as feminine implements, as the needle and the scissors. Dulcibel had never reasoned about such things; she was a maiden who naturally shrank from masculine self-assertion and publicity; but, called to confront a great peril, she was true to the noble instincts of her family and her race, and could meet falsehood with indignant denial and contempt. How she had been led to utter those predictions she never fully understood--not at the time nor afterwards. She seemed to herself to be a mere reed through which some indignant angel was speaking. "Well," said Joseph Putnam, as they got clear of the crowd, "brother Thomas and sister Ann have wakened up the tiger at last. They will be "afflicted" now in dead earnest. Did you see how sister Ann, with all her assurance, grew pale and almost fainted? It serves her right; she deserves it; and Thomas too, for being such a dupe and fool." "Do you think it will come true?" said Master Raymond. "Of course it will; the prediction will fulfill itself. Thomas is superstitious beyond all reasonableness; and good Mistress Ann, my pious sister-in-law, is almost as bad as he is, notwithstanding her lies and trickery. Do you know what I saw that Leah Herrick doing?" "What was it?" "In her pretended spasms, when bending nearly double, she was taking a lot of pins out of the upper edge of her stomacher with her mouth, preparatory of course, to making the accusation that it was Dulcibel's doings." "But she did not?" "No, it was just before the time that Dulcibel scared them so with the predictions; and Leah was so frightened, lest she also should be predicted against, that she quietly spit all the pins into her hand again." "Ah, that was the game played by a girl about ten years ago at Taunton-Dean, in England. Judge North told my father about it. One of the magistrates saw her do it." "Well, now, what shall we do? They will convict her just as surely as they try her." "Undoubtedly!" "Shall we attack and break open the jail some dark night, sword in hand? I can raise a party of young men, friends of the imprisoned, to do it; they only want a leader." "And all of you go off into perpetual banishment and have all your property confiscated?" "I do not care. I am ready to do it." "If you choose to encounter such a risk for others, I have no objection. I believe myself that if the friends and relatives of the accused persons would take up arms in defense of them, and demand their release, it would be the very manliest and most sensible thing they could do. But the consciences of the people here make cowards of them. They are all in bondage to a blind and conceited set of ministers, and to a narrow and bigoted creed." "Then what do you plan?" "Dulcibel's escape. You know that I managed to see her for a few minutes early this morning. She has a friend within the prison. Wait till we get on our horses, and I will explain it all to you." CHAPTER XIX. Antipas Works a Miracle. The next morning Antipas Newton was brought before the Magistrates for examination. Antipas seemed so quiet and peaceful in his demeanor, that Squire Hathorne could hardly credit the story told by the constables of his violent behavior on the night of the arrest. "I thought you were a Quaker," said he to the prisoner. "No, only half Quaker; the other half gospeller," replied the old man meekly. Mistress Ann was not present; her husband brought report that she was sick in bed. Probably she did not care to come, the game being too insignificant. Perhaps she had not quite recovered from the stunning effect of Dulcibel's prediction. Though it was not likely that a doom that was to be seven years in coming, would, after the first impression was past, be felt very keenly. There was time for so much to happen during seven years. But the Rev. Master Parris's little niece, Abigail Williams, was present, and several other older members of the "circle," prepared to witness against the old man to any extent that seemed to be necessary. After these had made their customary charges, and had gone through some of their usual paroxysms, Joseph Putnam, accompanied by Goodman Buckley, came forward. "This is all folly," said Joseph Putnam stoutly. "We all know Antipas Newton; and that he has been deranged in his intellects, and of unsound mind for the last twenty years. He is generally peaceful and quiet; though in times of excitement like the present, liable to be driven into outbreaks of violent madness. Here is his employer, Goodman Buckley, who of course knows him best, and who will testify to all this even more conclusively than I can." Then Goodman Buckley took the oath with uplifted hand, and gave similar evidence. No one had even doubted for twenty years past, that Antipas was simple-minded. He often said and did strange things; but only when everybody around him was greatly excited, was he at all liable to violent outbreaks of passion. Squire Hathorne seemed half-convinced; but the Reverend Master Parris rose from the bench where he had been sitting, and said he would like to be heard for a few moments. Permission being accorded: "What is insanity?" said he. "What is the scriptural view of it? Is it anything but a judgment of the Lord for sin, as in the case of Nebuchadnezzar; or a possession by a devil, or devils, as in the Case of the Gadarene who made his dwelling among the tombs as told in the fifth chapter of Mark and the eighth of Luke? That these were real devils is evident--for when permission was given them to enter into the herd of swine, they entered into them, and the swine ran down a steep place into the sea and were drowned. And as there were about two thousand swine, there must have been at least two thousand devils in that one so-called insane man; which no doubt accounted for his excessive violence. After the devils had left him, we are told that his countrymen came and saw him sitting at the feet of Jesus, no longer naked, but clothed and in his right mind. Therefore it follows as a logical deduction, that his not being before in his right mind was because he was possessed with devils." The magistrates and people evidently were greatly impressed with what Master Parris had said. And, as he sat down, Master Noyes, who was sitting beside his reverend brother, rose and said that he considered the argument they had just heard unanswerable. It could only be refuted by doubting the infallibility of the Scripture itself. And he would further add, as to the case before them, that this so-called insanity of the prisoner had not manifested itself until he had been repeatedly guilty of harboring two of that heretical and abominable sect called Quakers and had incurred imprisonment and heavy fines for so doing; to pay which fines his property had been rightfully sold. This punishment, and the death of his daughter by the decree of a just God, apparently not being sufficient to persuade him of the error of his ways, no doubt he had been given over to the devil, that he might become a sign and a warning to evil-doers. But, instead of repenting of his evil ways, he seems to have entered the service of Captain Burton, who was always known to be very loose in his religious views and observances; and who it now seems was himself a witch, or, as he might be rather more correctly termed, a wizard, and the father of the dangerous girl who was properly committed for trial yesterday. Going thus downward from bad to worse, this Antipas had at last become a witch himself; roaming around tormenting godly and unoffending people to please his mistress and her Satanic master. In conclusion he said that he fully agreed with his reverend brother, that what some of the world's people, who thought themselves wise above that which was written, called insanity, was simply, as taught in the holy scriptures, a possession by the devil. Magistrate Hathorne nodded to Magistrate Corwin, and Magistrate Corwin nodded in turn decidedly to his learned brother. They evidently considered that the ministers had settled that point. "Well, then," said Joseph Putnam, a little roughly to the ministers, "why do you not do as the Savior did, cast out the devils, that Antipas may sit down here in his right mind? We do not read that any of these afflicted people in Judea were cast into prison. In all cases they were pitied, not punished." "This is an unseemly interruption, Master Putnam," said Squire Hathorne sternly. "We all know that the early disciples were given the power to cast out devils and that they exercised the power continually, but that in later times the power has been withdrawn. If it were not so, our faithful elders would cast out the spectres that are continually tormenting these poor afflicted persons." While this discussion had been going on, Antipas had been listening to all that was said with the greatest attention. Once only had he manifested any emotion; that was when the reference had been made to the death of his daughter, who had died from her exposure to the severity of the winter season in Salem jail. At this time he put his hand to his eyes and wiped away a few tears. Before and after this, the expression of his face was rather as of one who was pleased and amused at the idea of being the center of attraction to such a large and goodly company. At the conclusion of Squire Hathorne's last remark, a new idea seemed to enter the old man's confused brain. He looked steadily at the line of the "afflicted" before him, who were now beginning a new display of paroxysms and contortions, and putting his right hand into one of his pockets, he drew forth a coil of stout leather strap. Grasping one end of it, he shouted, "I can heal them! I know what will cure them!" and springing from between the two constables that guarded him, began belaboring the "afflicted" with his strap over their backs and shoulders in a very energetic fashion. Dividing his energies between keeping off the constable and "healing the afflicted," and aided rather than hindered by Joseph Putnam's intentionally ill-directed efforts to restrain him, the insane man managed to administer in a short time no small amount of very exemplary punishment. And, as Masters Putnam and Raymond agreed in talking over the scene afterwards, he certainly did seem to effect an instantaneous cure of the "afflicted," for they came to their sober senses at the first cut of the leather strap, and rushed pell-mell down the passage as rapidly as they could regardless of the other tormenting "spectres." "This is outrageous!" said Squire Hathorne hotly to the constables as Antipas was at last overpowered by a host of assailants, and stood now firmly secured and panting between the two officers. "How dared you bring him here without being handcuffed?" "We had no idea of his breaking out anew, he seemed as meek as a lamb," said constable Herrick. "Why, we thought he was a Quaker!" added his assistant. "I am a Quaker!" said Antipas, looking a little dangerous again. "You are not." "Thou liest!" said the insane man. "This is one of my off days." Joseph Putnam laughed outright; and a few others, who were not church-members, laughed with him. "Silence!" thundered Squire Hathorne. "Is this a time for idle levity?" and he glared around the room. "We have heard enough," continued the Squire, after a few words with his colleague. "This is a dangerous man. Take him off again to prison; and see that his chains are strong enough to keep him out of mischief." CHAPTER XX. Master Raymond Goes to Boston. Whatever the immediate effect of Dulcibel's prediction had been, Mistress Ann Putnam was now about again, as full of wicked plans, and as dangerous as ever. She knew, for everybody knew, that Master Ellis Raymond had gone to Boston. In a village like Salem at that time, such fact could hardly be concealed. "What had he gone for? "To see a friend," Joseph Putnam had said. "What friend?" queried Mistress Ann. That seemed important for her to know. She had accused Dulcibel in the first place as a means of hurting Joseph Putnam. But now since the trial, she hated her for herself. It was not so much on account of the prediction, as on account of Dulcibel's terrific arraignment of her. The accusation that her husband was her dupe and tool was, on account of its palpable truth, that which gave her perhaps the greatest offence. The charge being once made, others might see its truth also. Thus all the anger of her cunning, revengeful nature was directed against Dulcibel. And just at this time she heard from a friend in Boston, who sent her a budget of news, that Master Raymond had taken dinner with Captain Alden. "Ah," she thought, "I see it now." The name was a clue to her. Captain Alden was an old friend of Captain Burton. He it was, so Dulcibel had said, from whom she had the gift of the "yellow bird." She knew Captain Alden by reputation. Like the other seamen of the time he was superstitious in some directions, but not at all in others. He would not for the world leave port on a Friday--or kill a mother Carey's chicken--or whistle at sea; but as to seeing witches in pretty young girls, or sweet old ladies, that was entirely outside of the average seaman's thoughts. Toward all women in fact, young or old, pretty or ugly, every sailor's heart at that day, as in this, warmed involuntarily. She also knew that the seamen as a class were rather inclined to what the godly called license in their religious opinions. Had not the sea-captains in Boston Harbor, some years before, unanimously refused to carry the young Quakeress, Cassandra Southwick, and her brother, to the West Indies and sell them there for slaves, to pay the fines incurred by their refusal to attend church regularly? Had not one answered for the rest, as paraphrased by a gifted descendant of the Quakers?-- "Pile my ship with bars of silver--pack with coins of Spanish gold, From keelpiece up to deck-plank the roomage of her hold, By the living God who made me! I would sooner in your bay Sink ship and crew and cargo, than bear this child away!" And so Master Raymond, who it was rumored had been a great admirer of Dulcibel Burton, was on a visit to Boston, to see her father's old friend, Captain John Alden! Mistress Putnam thought she could put two and two together, if any woman could. She would check-mate that game--and with one of her boldest strokes, too--that should strike fear into the soul of even Joseph Putnam himself, and teach him that no one was too high to be above the reach of her indignation. The woman was so fierce in this matter, that I sometimes have questioned, could she ever have loved and been scorned by Joseph Putnam? CHAPTER XXI. A Night Interview. A few days passed and Master Raymond was back again; with a pleasant word and smile for all he met, as he rode through the village. Mistress Ann Putnam herself met him on the street and he pulled up his horse at the side-path as she stopped, and greeted her. "So you have been to Boston?" she said. "Yes, I thought I would take a little turn and hear what was going on up there." "Who did you see--any of our people?" "Oh, yes--the Nortons and the Mathers and the Higginsons and the Sewalls--I don't know all. "Good day; remember me to my kind brother Joseph and his wife," said she, and Raymond rode on. "What did that crafty creature wish to find out by stopping me?" he thought to himself. "He did not mention Captain Alden. Yes, he went to consult him," thought Mistress Putnam. Master Joseph Putnam was so anxious to meet his friend, that he was standing at the turning in the lane that led up to his house. "Well, what did the Captain say?" "He was astounded. Then he gave utterance to some emphatic expressions about hell-fire and damnation which he had probably heard in church." "I know no more appropriate occasion to use them," commented young Master Joseph drily. "If it were not for certain portions of the psalms and the prophets, I could hardly get through the time comfortably nowadays." "If we can get her safely to Boston, he will see that a fast vessel is ready to take us to New York; and he will further see that his own vessel--the Colony's rather, which he commands--never catches us." "That looks well. I managed to see Dulcibel for a few minutes to-day, and"-- "How is she?" inquired Raymond eagerly. "Does she suffer much?" "Not very much I think. No more than is necessary to save appearances. She told me that the jailer was devoted to her. He will meet you to-night after dark on the hill, to arrange matters." "Say that we get from the prison by midnight. Then it will take at least three hours riding to reach Boston--though we shall not enter the town." "Three hours! Yes, four," commented his friend; "or even five if the night be dark and stormy; and such a night has manifest advantages. Still, as I suppose you must wait for a northwest wind, that is pretty sure to be a clear one." "Yes, the main thing is to get out into the open sea. Captain Alden plans to procure a Danish vessel, whose skipper once out of sight of land, will oppose any recapture by force." "I suppose however you will sail for New York?" "Yes, that is the nearest port and we shall be perfectly safe there. Still Jamestown would do. The Delaware is nearer than the James, but I am afraid the Quakers would not be able to protect us, as they are too good to oppose force by force." "Too good! too cranky!" said Master Putnam. "A pretty world the rascals would make of it, if the honest men were too good to fight. It seems to me there is something absolutely wicked in their non-resistant notions." "Yes, it is no worse to kill a two-legged tiger or wolf than a four-legged one; one has just as good a right to live as the other." "A better, I think," replied Master Putnam. "The tiger or wolf is following out his proper nature; the human tiger or wolf is violating his." "You know I rather like the Quakers," rejoined Master Raymond. "I like their general idea of considering the vital spirit of the Scripture more than the mere outward letter. But in this case, it seems to me, they are in bondage to the mere letter 'thou shalt not kill;' not seeing that to kill, in many cases, is really to save, not only life, but all that makes life valuable." That evening just about dusk, the two young men mounted their horses, and rode down one of the roads that led to Salem town, leaving Salem village on the right--thinking best not to pass through the village. Within a mile or so of the town, Master Putnam said, "here is the place" and led the way into a bridle path that ran into the woods. In about five minutes he halted again, gave a low whistle, and a voice said, a short distance from them, "Who are you, strangers?" "Friends in need," replied Master Putnam. "Then ye are friends indeed," said the voice; and Robert Foster, the jailer, stepped from behind the trunk of a tree into the path. "Well, Robie, how's the little girl?" said Master Joseph. "Bonnie as could be expected," was the answer. "She sends word to you, sir," addressing Master Raymond, "that you had better not come to see her. She knows well all you could say--just as well as if she heard it, the brave, bonnie lassie!" "I know it," replied Master Raymond. "Tell her I think of her every moment--and that things look bright." "Let us get out of this glooming, and where we can see a rod around us," suggested the jailer. "I like to see at least as far as my elbow, when I am talking confidentially." "I will go--you stay here with the horses," said Raymond to Master Putnam. "I do not want you mixed up with this thing any more than is absolutely necessary." "Oh, I do not care for the risk--I like it," replied his friend. "Stay, nevertheless," insisted Master Raymond. And getting down from his horse, and handing the bridle rein to Master Putnam, he followed the jailer out into an open space, where the rocks coming to the surface, had prevented the growth of the forest. Here it was a little lighter than it had been in the wood-path; but, the clouds having gathered over the sky since they started, it was not possible to see very far around them. "Hold up there!" cried Robie, catching Raymond by the arm--"why, man, do you mean to walk straight over the cliff?" "I did not know any chasm was there," said Raymond. "I never saw this place before. Master Putnam said it was a spot where we should not be likely to be molested. And it does look desolate enough." He leaned back against one of two upright planks which seemed to have been placed there for some purpose, and looked at a little pile of dirt and stones not far from his feet. "No," said the jailer. "I opine we shall not be disturbed here. I do not believe there is more than three persons in Salem that would be willing to come to this hill at this time of day,--and they are here already." And the jailer smiled audibly. "Why, how is that?" "Because they are all so damnably sooperstitious!" replied Robie, with an air of vast superiority. "Ah! is this place then said to be haunted?" "Yes,--poor Goodwife Bishop's speerit is said to haunt it. But as she never did anybody any harm while she was living, I see not why she should harm any one now that she is dead." "And so brave Bridget was executed near this place? Where was the foul murder done?" "You are leaning against the gallows," said Robie quietly. "And that pile of stones at your feet is over her grave." Raymond was a brave man, physically and morally, and not at all superstitious; but he recoiled involuntarily from the plank against which he had been leaning, and no longer allowed his right foot to rest upon the top stones of the little heap that marked the grave. "Oh, I thought you knew it," said the jailer calmly. "I say, let them fear goodwife Bishop's ghost who did her wrong. As for me, I favored her all I dared; and her last word to me was a blessing. But now for your honor's business, I have not long to stay." "I have planned all but the getting out of jail. Can it be easily done?" "As easy as walking out of a room." "Will you not be suspected?" "Not at all, I think--they are so mightily sooperstitious. I shall lock everything tight after her; and make up a good story about my wakening up in the middle of the night, just in time to see her flying out of the top o' the house, on her black mare, and thrashing the animal with a broom-handle. The bigger the lie the quicker they will believe it." "If they should suspect you, let Master Putnam know, and he will get you off, if wit and money together can do it." "Oh, I believe that," said the jailer. "Master Putnam is well known in all these parts, as a man that never deserts a friend; and I'll warrant you are one of the same grit." "My hand on it, Robie!" and he shook the jailer's hand warmly. "I shall never forget this service." "I am a rough, ignorant man," replied Robie quietly; "but I know gentle blood when I see it." "What time of night will suit you best?" "Just about twelve o'clock at night. That is the time all the ghosts and goblins and weetches choose; and when all honest people are in their beds, and in their first and soundest sleep." "We shall not be able to give you much warning, for we must wait a favorable wind and tide." "So you let me know by nightfall, it will do." "And now for the last point--what do I pay you? I know we are asking you to run a great risk. The men that whip gentlewomen, at the cart's tail, and put little children into jail, and sell them as slaves, will not spare you, if they find out what you have done. Thank God, I am rich enough to pay you well for taking such a fearful risk and shall be only too glad to reward your unselfish deed." "Not a shilling!" replied Robie proudly. "I am not doing this thing for pay. It is for the old Captain's little girl, that I have held in these arms many a day--and for the old Captain himself. While these bloody landsmen," continued the old sailor, "plague and persecute each other, Master Raymond, what is that to us, we men of the sea, who have a creed and a belief of our own, and who never even think of hurting a woman or a child? But as for these landsmen, sticking at home all the time, how can they be expected to know anything--compared to men that have doubled both Capes, and seen people living all sorts of ways, and believing all sorts of things? No, no," and Robie laughed disdainfully, "let these land-lubbers attend to their own affairs; but let them keep their hands off us seamen and our families." "So be it then, Robie; I honor your feelings! But nevertheless I shall not forget you. And one of these days, if we get off safely, you shall hear from me again about this matter." And then, their plans settled, Robie trudged down to the town; while the young men rode back the way they had come, to Master Putnam's. CHAPTER XXII. The Reverend Master Parris Exorcises "Little Witch." It will be remembered that Squire Hathorne had directed that Dulcibel's little horse should be handed over to the Reverend Master Parris, in order that it might be brought into due subjection. This had pleased Master Parris very much. In the first place he was of a decidedly acquisitive turn--as had been shown in his scheming to obtain a gift of the minister's house and orchard--and moreover, if he was able to cast out the devil that evidently possessed this horse, and make it a sober and docile riding animal, it would not only be the gain of a very pretty beast, but would prove that something of the power of casting out devils, which had been given to the disciples of old, had come down unto him. In such a case, his fame probably would equal, if not surpass, that of the great Boston ministers, Increase and Cotton Mather. Goodman Buckley had brought down the little mare, the next morning after the examination. The mare would lead very well, if the person leading her was on horseback--very badly, if he were not, except under peculiar circumstances. She was safely housed in the minister's stable, and gazed at with mingled fear and admiration by the family and their immediate neighbors. Master Parris liked horses, had some knowledge of the right way to handle them, and showed more wisdom in his treatment of this rather perverse animal of Dulcibel's than he had ever manifested in his church difficulties. He began by what he called a course of conciliation--to placate the devil, as it were. How he could bring his conscience to allow of this, I am not able to understand. But then the mare, if the devil were once cast out, would be, on account of her rare beauty, a very valuable animal. And so the minister, twice a day, made a point of going into the little passage, at the head of the stall, speaking kindly to the animal, and giving her a small lump of maple sugar. Like most of her sex, Susannah--as Master Parris had renamed her, knowing the great importance of a good name--was very fond of sugar; and her first apparent aversion to the minister seemed gradually to change into a kind of tacit respect and toleration, under the influence of his daily medications. Finally, the wary animal would allow him to pat her neck without striking at him with one of her front feet, or trying to bite him; and even to stroke her glossy flanks without lunging at him with her hind heels, in an exceedingly dangerous fashion. But spiritual means also were not neglected. The meeting-house was very near, and the mare was brought over regularly when there were religious services, and fastened in the near vicinity of the other more sober and orthodox horses, that she might learn how to behave and perhaps the evil spirit be thus induced to abandon one so constantly exposed to the doubtless unpleasant sounds (to it) of psalm and prayer and sermon. A horse is an imitative animal, and very susceptible to impressions,--both of a material and a mental character--and I must confess that these proceedings of the minister's were very well adapted to the object he had in view. The minister also had gone farther--but of this no one at the time knew but himself. He had gone into the stable on a certain evening, when his servant John Indian was off on an errand; and had pronounced a prayer over the possessed animal winding up with an exorcism which ought to have been sufficient to banish any reasonable devil, not only from the mare, but from the neighborhood. As he concluded, what seemed to be a huge creature, with outstretched wings, had buffeted him over the ears, and then disappeared through the open window of the stable. The creature was in the form of a big bat; but then it was well known that this was one of the forms which evil spirits were most fond of assuming. The minister therefore had strong reasons for supposing that the good work was now accomplished; and that he should find the mare hereafter a Susannah not only in name but in nature--a black lily, as it were. But of course this could not be certainly told, unless some one should attempt to ride her; and he suggested it one day to John Indian. But John Indian--unknown to anybody but himself--had already tried the experiment; and after a fierce contest, was satisfied with his share of the glory. His answer was:-- "No, no, master--debbil hab no 'spect for Indian man. Master he good man! gospel man! debbil 'fraid of him--him too much for debbil!" This seemed very reasonable for a poor, untutored Indian. Mistress Parris, too, said that she was certain he could succeed if any one could. The evil spirits would be careful how they conducted themselves towards such a highly respected and godly minister as her revered husband. Several of her acquaintances, pious and orthodox goodwives of the village, said the same thing. Master Parris thought he was a very good horseman besides; and began to take the same view. There was the horse, and he was the man! So one afternoon John Indian saddled and bridled the mare, and brought her up to the horse-block. Susannah had allowed herself to be saddled without the slightest manifestation of ill-humor; probably the idea of stretching her limbs a little, was decidedly pleasant in view of the small amount of exercise she had taken lately. But the wisest plan was not thought of. The minister's niece, Abigail Williams--one of the "afflicted"--had looked upon the black mare with longing eyes; and if she had made the experiment, it probably would have been successful. But they did not surmise that it might be the man's saddle and mode of riding, to which the animal was entirely unaccustomed, that were at the bottom of the difficulty. And, besides, Master Parris wanted the mare for his own riding, not for the women folks of his household. Detained by various matters, it was not until quite late in the afternoon, that the minister found time to try the experiment of riding the now unbewitched animal. It was getting too near night to ride very far, but he could at least try a short ride of a mile or so; which perhaps would be better for the first attempt than a longer one. So he came out to the horse-block, attended by his wife and Abigail Williams, and a couple of parishioners who had been holding a consultation with him, but had stopped a moment to see him ride off upon the animal of which so many marvelous stories had been told. "Yes," said the minister, as he came out to the horse-block, in answer to a remark made by one of his visitors, "I think I have been able with the Lord's help, to redeem this animal and make her a useful member of society. You will observe that she now manifests none of that viciousness for which formerly she was so noted." The mare did stand as composedly and peacefully as the most dignified minister could desire. "You will remember that she has never been ridden by any one, man or woman, save her witch mistress Dulcibel--Jezebel, I think would be a more fitting name for her, considering her wicked doings." Here Master Parris took the bridle rein from John Indian and threw his right leg over the animal. As the foot and leg came down on that side, and the stirrup gave her a smart crack, the mare's ears, which had been pricked up, went backwards and she began to prance around, John Indian still holding her by the mouth. "Let her go, John," said the minister; "she does not like to be held," and he tightened the rein. John, by his master's orders, had put on a curbbit; in place of the easy snaffle to which the mare had always been accustomed. And now as the minister tightened the rein, and the chain of the curb began to press upon and pain the mouth of the sensitive creature, she began to back and rear in a most excited fashion. "Loose de rein!" cried John Indian. The minister did so. But the animal now was fully alarmed; and no loosening or tightening would avail much. She was her old self again--as bewitched as ever. She reared, she plunged, she kicked, she sidled, and went through all the motions, which, on previous occasions, she had always found eventually successful in ridding her back of its undesired burden. "Oh, do get off of the wild beast," cried Mistress Parris, in great alarm. "She is still bewitched," cried Abigail Williams. "I see a spectre now, tormenting her with a pitchfork." "Oh, Samuel, you will be killed!--do get off that crazy beast!" again cried weeping Mistress Parris. "'Get off!' yes!" thought the minister; "but how am I going to do it, with the beast plunging and tearing in this fashion?" The animal evidently wanted him off, and he was very anxious to get off; but she would not hold still long enough for him to dismount peaceably. "Hold her while I dismount!" he cried to John Indian. But when John Indian came near to take hold of the rein by her mouth, the mare snapped at him viciously with her teeth; and then wheeled around and flung out her heels at his head, in the most embarrassing manner. Finally, as with a new idea, the mare started down the lane at a quick gallop, turned to the left, where a rivulet had been damned up into a little pond not more than two feet deep, and plunged into the water, splashing it up around her like a many jetted fountain. By this time, the minister, being only human, naturally was very angry; and commenced lashing her sides with his riding whip to get her into the lane again. This made the fiery little creature perfectly desperate, and she reared up and backwards, until she came down plump into the water; so that, if the saddle girth had not broken, and the saddle come off, and the minister with it, she might have tumbled upon him and perhaps seriously hurt him. But, as it was, no great damage was done; and the bridle also breaking, the mare spit the bit out of her mouth, and went down the lane in a run to the road, and thence on into the now fast-gathering night, no one could see whither. Mistress Parris, John Indian and the rest were by this time at the side of the pond, and ready to receive the chapfallen minister as he emerged with the saddle and the broken bridle from the water. "You are a sight, Samuel Parris!" said his wife, in that pleasant tone with which many wives are apt to receive their liege lords upon such unpleasant occasions. "Do get into the house at once. You will catch your death of cold, I know. And such a mess your clothes will be! But I only wonder you are not killed--trying to ride a mad witch's horse like that is." The minister made no reply. The situation transcended words. And did not allow even of sympathy, as his visitors evidently thought--not at least until he got on some clean and dry clothes. So they simply shook their heads, and took their course homewards. While the bedraggled and dripping Master Parris made his way to the house wiping the water and mud from his face with his wife's handkerchief, and stopping to shake himself well, before he entered the door, lest, as his wife said, "he should spoil everything in his chamber." Abigail Williams, when she went to see Mistress Ann Putnam that night, had a marvelous tale to tell; which in the course of the next day, went like wildfire through the village, growing still more and more marvelous as it went. Abigail had seen, as I have already said, the spectre of a witch goading the furious animal with a pitchfork. When the horse tore down the lane, it came to the little brook and of course could not cross it--for a witch cannot cross running water. Therefore, in its new access of fury, it sprang into the pond--and threw off the minister. Abigail further declared that then, dashing down the lane it came to the gate which shut it off from the road, and took the gate in a flying leap. But the animal never came down again. It was getting quite dark then, but she could still plainly see that a witch was upon its back, belaboring it with a broomstick. And she knew very well who that witch was. It was the "spectre" of Dulcibel Burton--for it had a scarlet bodice on, just such as Dulcibel nearly always wore. They two--the mare and its rider--went off sailing up into the sky, and disappeared behind a black cloud. And Abigail was almost certain that just as they reached the cloud, there was a low rumbling like thunder. It was noticeable that every time Abigail told this story, she remembered something that she had not before thought of; until in the course of a week or two, there were very few stories in the "Arabian Nights" that could surpass it in marvelousness. As the mare had not returned to her old stable at Goodman Buckley's, and could not be heard of in any other direction, Abigail's story began to commend itself even to the older and cooler heads of the village. For if the elfish creature had not vanished in the black cloud, to the sound of thunder, where was she? Joseph Putnam, and his household however held a different view of the subject, but they wisely kept their own counsel; though they had many a sly joke among themselves at the credulity of their neighbors. They knew that a little while after dark, a strange noise had been heard at the barn, and that one of the hired men going out, had found Dulcibel's horse, without saddle or bridle, pawing at the door of the stable for admission. As this was a place the animal had been in the habit of coming to, and where she was always well treated and even petted, it was very natural that she should fly here from her persecutors, as she doubtless considered them. Upon being told of it, and not knowing what had occurred Master Joseph thought it most prudent not to put the animal into his stable, but ordered the man to get half-a-peck of oats, and some hay, and take the mare to a small cow-pen, in the woods in an out of the way place, where she might be for years, and no one outside his own people be any the wiser for it. The mare seemed quite docile, and was easily led, being in company with the oats, of which a handful occasionally was given to her; and so, being watered at a stream near by and fed daily, she was no doubt far more comfortable than she would have been in the black cloud that Abigail Williams was perfectly ready to swear she had seen her enter and where though there might be plenty of water, oats doubtless were not often meet with. CHAPTER XXIII. Master Raymond Also Complains of an "Evil Hand." Master Raymond had everything now prepared upon his part, and was awaiting a message from Captain Alden, to the effect that he had made a positive engagement with the Danish captain. He had caught a serious cold on his return from Boston and, turning the matter over in his mind--for it is a wise thing to try to get some good result out of even apparently evil occurrences--he had called in the village doctor. But the good Doctor's medicine did not seem to work as it ought to--for one reason, Master Raymond regularly emptied the doses out of the window; thinking as he told Master Joseph, to put them where they would do the most good. And when the Doctor came, and found that neither purging nor vomiting had been produced, these with bleeding and sweating being the great panaceas of that day--as perhaps of this--he was naturally astonished. In a case where neither castor oil, senna and manna, nor large doses of Glauber's salts would work, a medical man was certainly justified in thinking that something must be wrong. Master Raymond suggested whether "an evil hand" might not be upon him. This was the common explanation at that time in Salem and its neighborhood. The doctors and the druggists nowadays miss a great deal in not having such an excuse made ready to their hands--it would account alike for adulterated drugs and ill-judged remedies. Master Raymond had the reputation of being rich, and the Doctor had been mortified by the bad behavior of his medicines--for if a patient be not cured, if he is at least vigorously handled, there seems to be something that can with propriety be heavily charged for. But if a doctor does nothing--neither cures, nor anything else--with what face can he bring in a weighty bill? And so good Doctor Griggs readily acquiesced in his patient's supposition that "an evil hand," was at work, and even suggested that he should bring Abigail Williams or some other "afflicted" girl with him the next time he came, to see with her sharpened eyes who it was that was bewitching him. But Master Raymond declined the offer--at least for the present. If the thing continued, and grew worse, he might be able himself to see who it was. Why should he not be as able to do it as Abigail Williams, or any other of the "afflicted" circle? Of course the doctor was not able to answer why; there seemed to be no good reason why one set of "afflicted" people should have a monopoly of the accusing business. Of course this came very quickly from the Doctor to Mistress Ann Putnam--for he was a regular attendant of that lady, whose nervous system indeed was in a fearful state by this time. And she puzzled a good deal over it. Did Master Raymond intend to accuse anyone? Who was it? Or was it merely a hint thrown out, that it was a game that two parties could play at? But then she smiled--she had the two ministers, and through them all the other ministers of the colony--the magistrates and judges--and the advantages of the original position. Imitators always failed. Still she rather liked the young man's craft and boldness--Joseph Putnam would never have thought of such a thing. But still let him beware how he attempted to thwart her plans. He would soon find that she was the stronger. Joseph Putnam then began to answer inquiries as to the health of his guest,--that he was not much better, and thought somewhat of going up to Boston for further medical advice--as the medicines given him so far did not seem to work as well as they should do. "Could he bear the ride?" "Oh, very well indeed--his illness had not so far affected his strength much." CHAPTER XXIV. Master Raymond's Little Plan Blocked. "Our game is blocked!" said Joseph Putnam to Master Raymond as he rode up one afternoon soon after, and dismounted at the garden gate, where his guest was awaiting him, impatient to hear if anything had yet come from Captain Alden. "What do you mean?" said his guest. "Mean? Why, that yon she-wolf is too much for us. Captain Alden is arrested!" "What! Captain John Alden!" "Yes, Captain John Alden!" "On what charge?" Master Joseph smiled grimly, "For witchcraft!" "Nonsense!" "Yes, devilish nonsense! but true as gospel, nevertheless." "And he submits to it?" "With all around him crazy, he cannot help it. Besides, as an officer of the government, he must submit to the laws." "On whose complaint?" "Oh, the she-wolf's of course--that delectable smooth-spoken wife of my brother Thomas. How any man can love a catty creature like that, beats me out." "I suppose she found out that I went frequently to see the Captain, when in Boston?" "I suppose so." "Who could have informed her?" "Her master, the devil, I suppose." "Where is the Captain to be examined?" "Oh, here in Salem, where his accusers are. It comes off tomorrow. They lose no time you see." "Well, I would not have believed it possible. Whom will they attack next?" "The Governor, I suppose," replied Master Joseph satirically. "Or you?" "If she does, I'll run my sword through her--not as being a woman, but as a foul fiend. I told her so. Let her dare to touch me, or any one under this roof!" "What did she say when you threatened her?" "She put on an injured expression; and said she could never believe anything wrong of her dear husband's family, if all the 'spectres' in the world told her so." "Well, I hope you are safe, but as for me--" "Oh, you are, too. You are within my gates. To touch you, is to touch me. She fully realizes that. Besides brother Thomas is her abject tool in most things; but some things even he would not allow." Yes, Captain John Alden, son of that John Alden who was told by the pretty Puritan maiden, "Speak for yourself John," when he went pleading the love-suit of his friend Captain Miles Standish; John Alden, captain of the only vessel of war belonging to the colony, a man of large property, and occupying a place in the very front rank of Boston society, had been arrested for witchcraft! What a state of insanity the religious delusion had reached, can be seen by this high-handed proceeding. Here again we come on to ground in which the details given in the old manuscript book, are fully confirmed, in every essential particular by existing public records. Mr. Upham, whose admirable account of "Salem Witchcraft" has been of great aid to me in the preparation of this volume, is evidently puzzled to account for Captain Alden's arrest. He is not able to see how the gallant Captain could have excited the ire of the "afflicted circle." He seems to have been entirely ignorant of this case of Dulcibel Burton--hers doubtless being one of the many cases in which the official records were purposely destroyed. If he had known of this case, he would have seen the connection between it and Captain Alden. It also might have explained the continual allusions to the "yellow bird" in so many of the trials--based possibly on Dulcibel's canary, which had been given to her by the Captain, and whose habit of kissing her lips with its little bill had appeared so mysterious and diabolical to the superstitious inhabitants of Salem village. Master Raymond's health, as is not to be wondered at, had improved sufficiently by the next day, to allow of his accompanying Joseph Putnam to the village, to attend Captain Alden's examination. The meeting-house was even more crowded than usual, such was the absorbing interest taken in the case, owing to the Captain's high standing in the province. The veteran Captain's own brief account of this matter, which has come down to us, does not go into many details, and is valuable mainly as showing that he regarded it very much in the same light that it is regarded now--owing probably to the fact that while a church member in good standing, he doubtless was a good deal better seaman than church member. For he says he was "sent for by the Magistrates of Salem, upon the accusation of a company of poor distracted or possessed creatures or witches." And he speaks further of them as "wenches who played their juggling tricks, falling down, crying out, and staring in people's faces." The worthy Captain's account is however, as I have said, very brief--and has the tone of one who had been a participant, however unwillingly, in a grossly shameful affair, alike disgraceful to the colony and to everybody concerned in it. For some additional details, I am indebted to the manuscript volume. Captain Alden had not been arrested in Boston. He says himself in his statement, that "he was sent to Salem by Mr. Stoughton"--the Deputy Governor, and Chief-Justice of the Special Court that had condemned and executed Bridget Bishop, and which was now about to meet again. Before the meeting of the magistrates, Master Raymond had managed to have a few words with him in private, and found that no arrangements with any skipper had yet been made. The first negotiations had fallen through, and there was no other foreign vessel at that time in port whose master possessed what Captain Alden considered the requisite trustworthiness and daring. For he wanted a skipper that would show fight if he was pursued and overtaken; not that any actual fighting would probably be necessary, for a simple show of resistance would doubtless be all that was needed. "When I get back to Boston, I think I shall be able to arrange matters in the course of a week or two." "What--in Boston jail?" queried Master Raymond. "You do not suppose the magistrates will commit me on such a trumped-up nonsensical charge as this?" said the stout old captain indignantly. "Indeed I do," was the reply. "Why, there is not a particle of truth in it. I never saw these girls. I never even heard of their being in existence." "Oh, that makes no difference." "The devil it doesn't!" said the old man, hotly. My readers must remember that he was a seaman. Here the sheriff came up and told the Captain he was wanted. CHAPTER XXV. Captain Alden before the Magistrates. There was an additional magistrate sitting on this occasion, Master Bartholomew Gedney--making three in all. Mistress Ann Putnam, the she-wolf, as her young brother-in-law had called her, was not present among the accusers--leaving the part of the "afflicted" to be played by the other and younger members of the circle. There was another Captain present, also a stranger, a Captain Hill; and he being also a tall man, perplexed some of the girls at first. One even pointed at him, until she was better informed in a whisper by a man who was holding her up. And then she cried out that it was "Alden! Alden!" who was afflicting her. At length one of the magistrates ordering Captain Alden to stand upon a chair, there was no further trouble upon that point; and the usual demonstrations began. As the accused naturally looked upon the "afflicted" girls, they went off into spasms, shrieks and convulsions. This was nearly always the first proceeding, as it created a profound sympathy for them, and was almost sufficient of itself to condemn the accused. "The tall man is pinching me!" "Oh, he is choking me!" "He is choking me! do hold his hands!" "He stabs me with his sword--oh, take it away from him!" Such were the exclamations that came from the writhing and convulsed girls. "Turn away his head! and hold his hands!" cried Squire Hathorne. "Take away his sword!" said Squire Gedney while the old Captain grew red and wrathful at the babel around him, and at the indignities to which he was subject. "Captain Alden, why do you torment these poor girls who never injured you?" "Torment them!--you see I am not touching them. I do not even know them; I never saw them before in my life," growled the indignant old seaman. "See! there is the little yellow bird kissing his lips!" cried Abigail Williams. "Now it is whispering into his ear. It is bringing him a message from the other witch Dulcibel Burton. See! see! there it goes back again to her--through the window!" So well was this done, that probably half of the people present would have been willing to swear the next day, that they actually saw the yellow bird as she described it. "Ask him if he did not give her the yellow bird," said Leah Herrick. "But probably he will lie about it." "Did you not give the witch, Dulcibel Burton, a yellow bird, which is one of her familiars?" said Squire Hathorne sternly. "I gave her a canary bird that I brought from the West Indies, if that is what you mean," replied the Captain. "But what harm was there in that?" "I knew it! The yellow bird told me so, when it came to peck out my eyes," cried Mercy Lewis. "Oh! there it is again!" and she struck wildly into the air before her face. "Drive it away! Do drive it away, some one!" Here a young man pulled out his rapier, and began thrusting at the invisible bird in a furious manner. "Now it comes to me!" cried Sarah Churchill. And then the other girls also cried out, and began striking into the air before their faces, till there was anew a perfect babel of cries, shrieks and sympathizing voices. Master Raymond, amid all his indignation at such barefaced and wicked and yet successful imposture, could hardly avoid smiling at the expression of the old seaman's face as he stood on the chair, and fronted all this tempest of absurd and villainous accusation. At first there had been a deep crimson glow of the hottest wrath upon the old man's cheeks and brow; but now he seemed to have been shocked into a kind of stupor, so unexpected and weighty were the charges against him, and made with such vindictive fierceness; and yet so utterly absurd, while at the same time, so impossible of being refuted. "He bought the yellow bird from Tituba's mother--her spectre told me so!" cried Abigail Williams. "What do you say to that, Master Alden?" said Squire Gedney. "That is a serious charge." "I never saw any Tituba or her mother," exclaimed the Captain, again growing indignant. "Who then did you buy the witch's familiar of?" asked Squire Hathorne. "I do not know--some old negro wench!" Here the magistrates looked at each other sagely, and nodded their wooden heads. It was a fatal admission. "You had better confess all, and give glory to God!" said Squire Gedney solemnly. "I trust I shall always be ready to give glory to God," answered the old man stoutly; "but I do not see that it would glorify Him to confess to a pack of lies. You have known me for many years, Master Gedney, but did you ever know me to speak an untruth, or seek to injure any innocent persons, much less women and children?" Squire Gedney said that he had known the accused many years, and had even been at sea with him, and had always supposed him to be an honest man; but now he saw good cause to alter that judgment. "Turn and look now again upon those afflicted persons," concluded Squire Gedney. As the accused turned and again looked upon them, all of the "afflicted" fell down on the floor as if he had struck them a heavy blow--moaning and crying out against him. "I judge you by your works; and believe you now to be a wicked man and a witch," said Squire Gedney in a very severe tone. Captain Alden turned then and looked directly at the magistrate for several moments. "Why does not my look knock you down too?" he said indignantly. "If it hurts them so much, would it not hurt you a little?" "He wills it not to hurt you," cried Leah Herrick. "He is looking at you, but his spectre has its back towards you." There was quite a roar of applause through the crowded house at such an exposure of the old Captain's trickery. He was very cunning to be sure; but the "afflicted" girls could see through his knavery. "Make him touch the poor girls," said the Reverend Master Noyes. For it was the accepted theory that by doing this, the witch, in spite of himself, reabsorbed into his own body the devilish energy that had gone out of him, and the afflicted were healed. This was repeatedly done through the progress of these examinations and the after trials; and was always found to be successful, both as a cure of the sufferers, and an undeniable proof that the person accused was really a witch. In this case the "afflicted" girls were brought up to Captain Alden, one after the other and upon his being made to touch them with his hand, they invariably drew a deep breath of relief, and said they felt entirely well again. "You see Captain Alden," said Squire Gedney solemnly, "none of the tests fail in your case. If there were only one proof, we might doubt; but as the Scripture says, by the mouths of two or three witnesses shall the truth be established. If you were innocent a just God would not allow you to be overcome in this manner." "I know that there is a just God, and I know that I am entirely innocent" replied the noble old seaman in a firm voice. "But it is not for an uninspired man like me, to attempt to reconcile the mysteries of His providence. Far better men than I am, even prophets and apostles, have been brought before magistrates and judges, and their good names lied away, and they condemned to the prison and the scaffold and the cross. Why then, should I expect to fare better than they did? All I can do, like Job of old, is to maintain my integrity--even though Satan and all his imps be let loose for a time against me." Here the Reverend Master Noyes rose excitedly, and said that the decisions of heathen courts and judges were one thing; and the decisions of godly magistrates, who were all members of the church of the true God, and therefore inspired by his spirit, was a very different thing. He said it was simply but another proof of the guilt of the accused, that he should compare himself with the apostles and the martyrs; and these worshipful Christian magistrates with heathen magistrates and judges. Hearing him talk in this ribald way, he could no longer doubt the accusation brought against him; for there was no surer proof of a man or woman having dealings with Satan, than to defame and calumniate God's chosen people. As Mr. Noyes took his seat, the magistrates said they had heard sufficient, and ordered the committal of the accused to Boston prison to await trial. "I will give bail for Captain Alden's appearance, to the whole amount of my estate," said Joseph Putnam coming forward. "A man of his age, who has served the colony in so many important positions, should be treated with some leniency." "We are very sorry for the Captain," answered Squire Gedney, "but as this is a capital offence, no bail can be taken." "Thank you, Master Putnam, but I want no bail," said the old seaman proudly. "If the colony of Massachusetts Bay, which my father helped to build up, and for which I have labored so long and faithfully, chooses to requite my services in this ungrateful fashion, let it be so. The shame is on Massachusetts not on me!" CHAPTER XXVI. Considering New Plans. "Well, what now?" said Master Joseph Putnam to his guest, as they rode homeward. "You might give up the sea-route and try a push through the wilderness to the Hudson River." "Rather dangerous that." "Yes, unless you could secure the services of some heathen savages to pilot you through." "Could we trust them?" "Twenty years ago, according to my father's old stories, we could; but they are very bitter now--they do not keep much faith with white men. "Perhaps the white men have not kept much faith with them." "Of course not. You know they are the heathen; and we have a Bible communion to exterminate them, and drive them out of our promised land." "Do you believe that?" "Well, not exactly," and Master Joseph laughed. "Besides, I think the Quaker plan both cheaper in the end and a great deal safer. Not that I believe they have any more right to the land than we have." "Penn and the Quakers think differently." "I know they do--but they are a set of crazy enthusiasts." "What is your view? That of your ministers? The earth is the Lord's. He has given it to His saints. We are the saints." Master Joseph laughed again. "Well, something like that. The earth is the Lord's. He has intended it for the use of His children. We are His children quite as much as the savages. Therefore we have as much right to it as they have." "Only they happen to be in possession," replied Master Raymond, drily. "Are they in possession? So far as they are actually in possession, I admit their right. But do you seriously mean that a few hundred or thousand of wild heathen, have a right to prior occupancy to the whole North American continent? It seems to me absurd?" "A relative of mine has ten square miles in Scotland that he never occupies, in your sense of the word any more than your red-men do; and yet he is held to have a valid right to it, against the hundreds of peasants who would like to enter in and take possession." "Oh, plenty of things are done wrong in the old world," replied Master Putnam; "that is why we Puritans are over here. But still the fact remains that the earth is the Lord's and that He intended it for His children's use; and no merely legal or personal right can be above that. If ever the time comes that your relative's land is really needed by the people at large, why then some way will have to be contrived to get hold of it for them." "The Putnam family have a good many broad acres too," said Master Raymond, with a smile, looking around him. "Oh, you cannot scare me," replied his friend, also smiling. "What is sauce for the Campbell goose is sauce for the Putnam gander. If the time ever comes when the public good requires that the broad lands of the Putnams--if there be any Putnams at that time--have to be appropriated to meet the wants of their fellow men, then the broad Putnam lands will have to go like the rest, I imagine. We have taken them from the Indians, just as the Normans took them from the Saxons--and as the Saxons took them from the Danes and the ancient inhabitants--by the strong hand. But the sword can give no right--save as the claim of the public good is behind it. Show me that the public good requires it, and I am willing that the title-deeds for my own share of the broad Putnam lands shall be burnt up tomorrow." "I believe you, my dear friend," said Master Raymond, gazing with admiration upon the manly, glowing face of this nature's nobleman. "And I am inclined to think that your whole view of the matter is correct. But, coming back to our first point, do you know of any savage that we could trust to guide us safely to the settlements on the Hudson?" "If old king Philip, whose head has been savagely exposed to all weathers on the gibbet at Plymouth for the last sixteen years, were alive, something perhaps might be done. His safeguard would have carried you through." "Is there not another chief, called Nucas?" "Oh, old Nucas, of the Mohegans. He was a character! But he died ten years ago. Lassacus, too, was killed. There are a couple of Pequod settlements down near New Haven I believe; but they are too far off." "And then you could not tell me where to put my hand on some dozen or so of the Indians, whom I might engage as a convoy." "Not now. A roving party may pass in the woods at any time. But they would not be very reliable. If they could make more by selling your scalps than by keeping them safely on your heads, they would be pretty sure to sell them." "Then I see nothing to do, but to go again to Boston, and arrange another scheme on the old plan." "You ought not to travel long in Dulcibel's company without being married," said Master Putnam bluntly. "Very true--but we can not well be married without giving our names to the minister; and to do that, would be to deliver ourselves up to the authorities." "Mistress Putnam and myself might accompany you to New York--we should not mind a little trip." "And thus make yourselves parties to Dulcibel's escape? No, no, my good friend--that would be to put you both in prison in her place." "It is not likely there would be any other woman on board the vessel--that is of any reputation. You must try to get some one to go with you." "And incur the certainty of punishment when she returns?" "Perhaps you could find some one who would like to settle permanently in New York. I should like to go myself if I could, and get out of this den of wild beasts." "Yes, I may be able to do that--though I shall not dare to try that until the last day almost--for the women always have some man to consult, and thus our secret plan would get blown about, to our great peril." "I have a scheme!" cried Master Joseph in exultation. "It is the very thing," and he burst out laughing. "Kidnap Cotton Mather, or one of the other Boston ministers, and take him with you." "That would be a bold stroke," replied Master Raymond, also laughing heartily. "But, like belling the cat, it is easier said than done. Ministers are apt to be cautious and wary. They are timid folk." "Not when a wedding is to be solemnized, and a purse of gold-pieces is shaken before them," returned Master Putnam. "Have everything ready to sail. Then decoy the minister on board, to marry a wealthy foreign gentleman, a friend of the skipper's--and do not let him go again. Pay him enough and the skipper will think it a first rate joke." "But he might be so angry that he would refuse to marry us after all our trouble." "Oh, do not you believe that--if you make the fee large enough. Treat him kindly, represent to him the absolute necessity of the case, say that you never would have thought of such a thing if it could in any way have been avoided, and I'll warrant he will do the job before you reach New York." "I wish I felt as certain as you do." "Well, suppose he will not be mollified. What then? Your end is attained. He has acted as chaperon, and involuntary master of propriety whether he would or not. A minister is just as good as a matron to chaperon the maiden. Of course he will have his action for damages against you, and you will be willing to pay him fairly, but if he brings you before a jury of New Yorkers, and you simply relate the facts, and the necessity of the case, little will he get of damages beyond a plentiful supply of jokes and laughter. You know there is very little love lost between the people of the two colonies; and that the Manhattan people have no more respect for all the witchcraft business, than you and I have." Master Raymond made no reply. He did not want to kidnap a minister, if it could be in any way avoided. With Master Putnam, however, that seemed to be one of the most desirable features of the proposed plan, only he was tenfold more sorry now than ever, that such weighty prudential reasons prevented his taking any active share in the enterprise. To kidnap a minister--especially if it could be the Reverend Cotton Mather--seemed to him something which was worth almost the risking of his liberty and property in which to take a hand. CHAPTER XXVII. The Dissimulation of Master Raymond. About this time the gossips of Salem village began to remark upon the attentions that were being paid by the wealthy young Englishman, Master Ellis Raymond, to various members of the "afflicted circle." He petted those bright and terribly precocious children of twelve, Ann Putnam and Abigail Williams; he almost courted the older girls, Mary Walcot, Mercy Lewis and Leah Herrick and had a kindly word for Mary Warren, Sarah Churchill and others, whenever he saw them. As for Mistress Ann Putnam, the mother, he always had been very respectful to her. While in Boston he had purchased quite an assortment of those little articles which the Puritan elders usually denominated "gew-gaws" and "vain adornments" and it was observed that Abigail Williams especially had been given a number of these, while the other girls had one or more of them, which they were very careful in not displaying except at those times when no grave elder or deacon was present to be shocked by them. I will acknowledge that there was some dissimulation in this conduct of Master Raymond's, and Joseph Putnam by no means approved of it. "How you can go smiling around that den of big and little she-wolves, patting the head of one, and playing with the paw of another, I cannot understand, friend Raymond. I would not do it to save my life." "Nor I," answered Master Raymond gravely. "But I would do it to save your life, friend Joseph, or that of your sweet young wife there--or that of the baby which she holds upon her knee." "Or that of Mistress Dulcibel Burton!" added sweet Mistress Putnam kindly. "Yes, or that of Dulcibel Burton." "You know, my dear friends, the plan I have in view may fail. If that should fail, I am laying the foundation of another--so that if Dulcibel should be brought to trial, the witnesses that are relied upon may fail to testify so wantonly against her. Even little Abigail Williams has the assurance and ingenuity to save her, if she will." "Yes, that precocious child is a very imp of Satan," said Joseph Putnam. "What a terrible woman she will make." "Oh, no, she may sink down into a very tame and commonplace woman, after this tremendous excitement is over," rejoined his friend. "I think at times I see symptoms of it now. The strain is too great for her childish brain." "Well, I suppose your dissimulation is allowable if it is to save the life of your betrothed," said Master Putnam, "but I would not do it if I could and I could not if I would." "Do you remember Junius Brutus playing idiot--and King David playing imbecile?" "Oh, I know you have plenty of authority for your dissimulation." "It seems to me," joined in young Mistress Putnam, "that the difference between you is simply this. Joseph could not conscientiously do it; and you can." "Yes, that is about the gist of it," said her young husband. "And now that I have relieved my conscience by protesting against your course, I am satisfied you should go on in your own way just the same." "And yet you feel no conscientious scruples against abducting the minister," rejoined Raymond laughing; "a thing which I am rather loath to do." "I see," replied Joseph, also laughing. "I scruple at taking mustard, and you at cayenne pepper. It is a matter of mental organization probably." "Yes--and if a few or many doses of mustard will prevent my being arrested as a witch, which would put it entirely out of my power to aid Dulcibel in her affliction--and perhaps turn some of the "afflicted" girls over to her side, in case she has to stand a trial for her life--I shall certainly swallow them with as much grace as if they were so many spoonfuls of honey. There is a time to be over-scrupulous, friend Joseph, but not when my beloved one is in the cage of the tigers. Yes, I shall not hesitate to meet craft with craft." And Mistress Putnam, sweet, good woman as she was, nodded her head, woman-like, approvingly, carried away perhaps by the young man's earnestness, and by the strength of his love. CHAPTER XXVIII. The Cruel Doings of the Special Court. Meanwhile the Special Court of seven Judges--a majority of whom were from Boston, with the Deputy Governor of the Colony, William Stoughten, as Chief-Justice--was by no means indolent. Of the proceedings of this court, which embodied apparently the best legal intellect of the colony, no official record is in existence. Its shameful pages, smeared all over with bigotry and blood, no doubt were purposely destroyed. So far as we are acquainted with the evidence given before it, it was substantially the same as had been given at the previous examinations before the committing magistrates. That nothing was too extravagant and absurd to be received as evidence by this learned court, is proven by the statement of the Reverend Cotton Mather, already alluded to, relative to a demon entering the meeting-house and tearing down a part of it, in obedience to a look from Mistress Bridget Bishop--of which diabolical outrage the Court was duly informed. Besides, there could have been no other kind of evidence forthcoming, that would apply to the crime of which all the accused were charged, Witchcraft. Many of the prisoners indeed were accused of murdering children and others, whose illness had been beyond the physician's power to cure; but the murders were all committed, it was alleged, by the use of "spectres," "familiars," "puppets," and other supernatural means. Against such accusations it was impossible for men and women of the highest character and reputation to make any effectual defence, before a court and jury given over so completely to religious fanaticism and superstitious fancies. To be accused was therefore to be condemned. Yes, this Special Court, having had all its misgivings, if it ever really had any, quieted by the answer of the council of ministers, was doing quick and fearful work. Meeting again in the latter part of June, it speedily tried, convicted and sentenced to death five persons:--Sarah Good, Sarah Wildes, Elizabeth How, Susanna Martin and Rebecca Nurse. Then, adjourning till August 5th, it tried and convicted George Burroughs, John Procter, Elizabeth Procter, George Jacobs, John Willard and Martha Carrier. Then meeting on September 9th, it tried and condemned Martha Corey, Mary Easty, Alice Parker and Ann Pudcator; and on September 17th, Margaret Scott, Wilmot Reed, Samuel Wardwell and Mary Parker. It will be noticed that of the above nineteen persons, only five were men. As the greater number of the accusers were also of the female sex, it was natural, I suppose, that this should be so. And thus we find that the word witch is applied indifferently in the old records, to men and women; the masculine term wizard being seldom used. That the learned Judges were fully as superstitious as the people at large, is conclusively proved by certain facts that have come down to us. In the case of that lovely and venerable matron, Rebecca Nurse, the jury at first brought in the verdict "Not guilty." But immediately all the accusers in the Court, and all the "afflicted" out of it, made a hideous outcry. Two of the Judges said they were not satisfied. The Chief-Justice intimated that there was one admission of the prisoner that the jury had not properly considered. These things induced the jurors to go out again, and come back with a verdict of "Guilty." One of the charges against Rebecca Nurse, testified to by Edward Putnam, was that, after the said Rebecca Nurse had been committed to jail, and was thus several miles distant in the town of Salem, "she, the said Nurse, struck Mistress Ann Putnam with her spectral chain, leaving a mark, being a kind of round ring, and three streaks across the ring. She had six blows with a chain in the space of half-an-hour; and she had one remarkable one, with six streaks across her arm. Ann Putnam, Jr., also was bitten by the spectre of the said Rebecca Nurse about two o'clock of the day. I, Edward Putnam, saw the marks, both of bite and chains." It was a great hardship in all these trials, that the prisoners were not allowed any counsel; while on the other hand, the members of the Court seemed to take it for granted from the first, that they were guilty. The only favor allowed them was the right of objecting to a certain extent to those jurors whose fairness they mistrusted. One of the accused, a reputable and aged farmer named Giles Corey, refused to plead. His wife, Martha Corey, was among the convicted. At her examination, some time previous, he had allowed himself to testify in certain respects against her; involved as he was for a time in the prevailing delusion. But he was a man of strong mind and character; and though not entirely able to throw off the chains which superstition had woven around him, he repented very sorely the part he had taken against his wife. This was enough to procure his own accusation. The "afflicted girls" brought their usual complaints that his spectre tormented them. They fell down and shrieked so wildly at his examination, that Squire Hathorne asked him with great indignation, "Is it not enough that you should afflict these girls at other times without doing it now in our presence?" The honest and sturdy man was visibly affected. He knew he was not consciously doing anything; but what could it all mean? If he turned his head, the girls said he was hurting them and turned their heads the same way. The Court ordered his hands tied--and then the girls said they were easier. But he drew in his cheeks, after a habit he had, and the cheeks of the girls were sucked in also, giving them great pain. The old man was fairly dumfounded. When however one of the girls testified that Goodman Corey had told her that he saw the devil in the shape of a black hog in the cow-house, and was very much frightened by it, the spirited old man said that he never was frightened by man or devil in his life. But he had a fair property, and two sons-in-law to whom he wished to leave it. He knew well that if he were tried he would be convicted, and that would carry with it the confiscation of his property. So, as other noble-hearted men had done in that and the previous age, he refused when brought before the Special Court, to plead either "guilty" or "not guilty." In these later times the presiding Judge would simply order a plea of "not guilty" to be entered, and the trial would proceed. But then it was otherwise--the accused himself must plead, or the trial could not go on. Therefore he must be made to plead--by placing heavy weights upon his breast, and adding to them until the accused either agreed to plead, or died under the torture. In which last case, the prisoner lost his life as contumacious; but gained his point of preserving his estate, and title of nobility if he had any, to his family. So, manly old Giles Corey, remorseful for the fate he had helped to bring upon his wife, and determined that his children should inherit the property he had acquired, maintained a determined silence when brought before the Special Court. Being warned, again and again, he simply smiled. He could bear all that they in their cruel mockery of justice could inflict upon him. Joseph Putnam and Master Raymond rode down to Salem that day--to the orchard where the brave old man was led out of jail to meet his doom. They saw him, tied hand and foot, and heavy flat stones and iron weights laid one by one upon him. "More! More!" pleaded the old man at last. "I shall never yield. But, if ye be men, make the time short!" "I cannot stand this," said Master Raymond. "We are powerless to help him--let us go." "To torture an old man of eighty years in this way! What a sight for this new world!" exclaimed Master Putnam, as they turned their horses' heads and rode off. His executioners took Giles Corey at his word. They knew the old man would never yield. So they mercifully heaped the heavy weights upon him until they had crushed out his life. CHAPTER XXIX. Dulcibel's Life in Prison. Dulcibel's life in prison was of course a very monotonous one. She did not suffer however as did many other women of equally gentle nature. In the jails of Ipswich, Boston and Cambridge, there were keepers who conformed in most cases strictly to the law. In many instances delicate and weakly women, often of advanced years, were chained, hands and feet, with heavy irons, night and day. But Robert Foster and his son, who assisted him as under-keeper, while indulging before the marshal and the constables in the utmost violence and severity of language, and who were supposed to be strict enforcers of all the instructions received from the magistrates, were as we have seen, at heart, very liberal and kind-hearted men. And the only fear the prisoners had, was that they would throw up their positions some day in disgust. Uncle Robie often declared to Dulcibel that he would, when she was once fairly out of the clutches of her enemies. Every now and then instructions would come to jailer Foster from one of the magistrates--generally Squire Hathorne--to put heavier irons on some one of the prisoners, whose spectre was still tormenting the "afflicted girls." It being generally held that the more heavily you chained a witch, the less able she was to afflict her victims. And at these times Master Foster would get out his heaviest irons, parade them before the eyes of the constables, declare in a fierce tone what he was about to do, get the constable off on one pretext or another--and do nothing. It was thought best and wisest for neither Master Joseph Putnam nor Master Raymond to seek many interviews with Dulcibel; the means of intercourse between the two lovers being restricted to little notes, which goodwife Buckley, who frequently visited the maiden, transmitted from one to the other through the agency of either her husband or of Joseph Putnam. This kept them both in heart; and Dulcibel being sustained by the frequent assurances of her lover's devotion, and by the hope of escape, kept the roses of her cheeks in marvelous bloom during her close confinement. One of the constables, who managed to get sight of her one day through the half-opened door of her cell, expressed surprise to the jailer that she should still look so blooming, considering the weight of the heavy chains to which she was continually subjected. "And why should not the young witch look so?" replied the jailer. "Is not her spectre riding around on that devil's mare half the night, and having a good time of it?" The constable assented to this view of the case; and his suspicions, if he had any, were quieted. In fact even Squire Hathorne himself probably would have been perfectly satisfied with an explanation of so undeniable a character. Of course it was not considered prudent by Uncle Robie, that the furniture or general appearance of Dulcibel's cell should be changed in the least for the better. Not even a bunch of flowers that Goodwife Buckley once brought to Dulcibel, could be allowed to remain there. While in a corner of the cell, lay the heavy chains which, if the marshal or one of the magistrates, should insist upon seeing the prisoner, could be slipped on her wrists and ankles in a few minutes. Fortunately, however, for Dulcibel, the interest of all these was now centered upon the trials that were in progress, the contumacious obstinacy of Giles Corey, the host of new accusations at Ipswich and other neighboring places, and the preparations for the execution of those already condemned to death. If they had a passing thought of the young witch Dulcibel Burton, it was that her time would come rapidly around in its turn, when speedy justice no doubt would be done to her. As to Antipas, her faithful servitor, he had relapsed again into his old staidness and sobriety in the comparative quietude of the prison. Only on the day of Giles Corey's execution had the prevailing excitement attending that event, and which naturally affected the constables and jailers, made him raging. To pass the constable's inspection, as well as for his own safety, the jailer had chained him; but his voice could be heard ringing through the closed door of his cell at intervals from morning till evening. The burden of his thoughts seemed to be a blending of denunciation and exultation. The predictions of the four Quakers executed many years before on Boston common, and those of men and women who had been whipped at the cart's tail through the towns of the colony, evidently seemed to him in progress of fulfillment:-- "They have torn the righteous to pieces; now the judgment is upon them, and they are tearing each other! Woe to the bloody towns of Boston and Salem and Ipswich! Satan is let loose by the Lord upon them! They have slain the saints, they have supped full of innocent blood; now the blood of their own sons, their own daughters, is filling the cup of God's vengeance! They have tortured the innocent women, the innocent children--and banished them and sold them to the Philistines as slaves. But the Lord will avenge His own elect! They are given up to believe a lie! The persecutors are persecuting each other! They are pressing each other to death beneath heavy stones! They are hanging each other on the gallows of Haman! Where they hung the innocent, they are hanging themselves! Oh, God! avenge now the blood of thy Saints! As they have done, let it be done unto them! Whip and kill! Whip and kill! Ha! ha! ha!"--and with a blood-curdling laugh that rang through the narrow passages of the prison, the insane old man would fall down for a time on his bed exhausted. That was an awful day, both outside and inside the prison--for all the prisoners knew what a savage death old Giles Corey was meeting. It seemed to Dulcibel afterwards, that if she had not been sustained by the power of love, and a hopeful looking forward to other scenes, she must have herself gone crazy during that and the other evil days that were upon them. To some of the prisoners, the most fragile and sensitive ones, even the hour of their execution seemed to come as a relief. Anything, to get outside of those close dark cells--and to make an end of it! CHAPTER XXX. Eight Legal Murders on Witch Hill. A mile or so outside of the town of Salem, the ground rises into a rocky ledge, from the top of which, to the south and the east and the west, a vast expanse of land and sea is visible. You overlook the town; the two rivers, or branches of the sea, between which the town lies; the thickly wooded country, as it was then, to the south and west; and the wide, open sea to the eastward. Such a magnificent prospect of widespread land and water is seldom seen away from the mountain regions; and, as one stands on the naked brow of the hill, on a clear summer day, as the sunset begins to dye the west, and gazes on the scene before and around him, he feels that the heavens are not so very far distant, and as if he could almost touch with these mortal hands the radiance and the glory. The natural sublimity of this spot seems to have struck the Puritan fathers of Salem, and looking around on its capabilities, they appear to have come to the conclusion that of all places it was the one expressly designed by the loving Father of mankind for--a gallows! "Yes, the very spot for a gallows!" said the first settlers. "The very spot!" echoed their descendants. "See, the wild "Heathen Salvages" can behold it from far and near; the free spoken, law-abiding sailors can descry it, far out at sea; and both know by this sign that they are approaching a land of Christian civilization and of godly law!" I think if I were puzzled for an emblem to denote the harsher and more uncharitable side of the Puritan character, I should pick out this gallows on Witch Hill near Salem, as being a most befitting one. This was the spot where, as we have already related, approaching it from the north, Master Raymond had his interview with jailer Foster. But that was night, and it was so dark that Master Raymond had no idea of its commanding so fine a view of both land and water. He had been in Boston during the execution of poor Bridget Bishop; and though he had often seen the gallows from below, and wondered at the grim taste which had reared it in such a conspicuous spot, he had never felt the least desire, but rather a natural aversion, to approach the place where such an unrighteous deed had been enacted. But now the carpenters had been again at work and supplanted the old scaffolding by another and larger one. Now the uprights had been added too--and on the beam which they supported there was room for at least ten persons. This seemed to be enough space to Marshall Herrick and Squire Hathorne; though at the rate the arrests and convictions were going on, it might be that one-half of the people in the two Salems and in Ipswich, would be hung in the course of a year or so by the other half. But for this special hanging, only eight ropes and nooses were prepared. The workmen had been employed the preceding afternoon; and now in the fresh morning light, everything was ready; and eight of those who had been condemned were to be executed. The town, and village, and country around turned out, as was natural, in a mass, to see the terrible sight. And yet the crowd was comparatively a small one, the colony then being so thinly settled. But this, to Master Raymond's eyes, gave a new horror to the scene. If there had been a crowd like that when London brought together its thousands at Tyburn, it would have seemed less appalling. But here were a few people--not alienated from each other by ancestral differences in creed or politics, and who had never seen each other's faces before--but members of the same little band which had fled together from their old home, holding the same political views, the same religious faith; who had sat on the same benches at church, eaten at the same table of the Lord's supper, near neighbors on their farms, or in the town and village streets; now hunting each other down like wolves, and hanging each other up in cold blood! This it was that set apart the Salem persecution from all other persecutions of those old days against witches and heretics; and which has given it a painful pre-eminence in horror. It was neighbor hanging neighbor; and brother and sister persecuting to death with the foulest lies and juggling tricks their spiritual brothers and sisters. And the plea of "delusion" will not excuse it, except to those who have not investigated its studied cruelty and malice. Sheer, unadulterated wickedness had its full share in the persecution; and that wickedness can only be partly extenuated by the plea of possible insanity or of demoniacal possession. [Illustration: Marched from jail for the last time] The route to the gallows hill was a rough and difficult one; but the condemned were marched from the jail for the last time, one by one, and compelled to walk attended by a small guard and a rude and jeering company. There was Rebecca Nurse, infirm but venerable and lovely, the beloved mother of a large family; there was the Reverend George Burroughs, a small dark man, whose great physical strength was enough, as the Reverend Increase Mather, then President of Harvard College, said, to prove he was a witch; but who did not believe in infant baptism, and probably was not up to the orthodox standard of the day in other respects, though in conduct a very correct and exemplary man; there was old John Procter, with his two staffs, and long thin white hair; there was John Willard, a good, innocent young man, lied to death by Susanna Sheldon, aged eighteen; there was unhappy Martha Carrier four of whose children, one a girl of eight, had been frightened into testifying before the Special Court against her; saying that their mother had taken them to a witch meeting, and that the Devil had promised her that she should be queen of hell; there was gentle, patient and saintlike Elizabeth How, with "Father, forgive them!" on her mild lips; and two others of whom we now know little, save that they were most falsely and wickedly accused. There also were the circle of the "afflicted," gazing with hard dry eyes on the murder they had done and with jeers and scoffs on their thin and cruel lips. There, too, were the reverend ministers, Master Parris of Salem village, and Master Noyes of Salem town, and Master Cotton Mather, who had come down from Boston in his black clothes, like a buzzard that scents death and blood a long way off, to lend his spiritual countenance to the terrible occasion. Master Noyes, however, the most of the time, seemed rather quiet and subdued. He was thinking perhaps of Sarah Good's fierce prediction, when he urged her, as she came up to the gallows to confess, saying to her that, "she was a witch, and she knew it!" Outraged beyond all endurance at this last insult at such a moment, Sarah Good cried out: "It is a lie! I am no more a witch than you are. God will yet give you blood to drink for this day's cruel work!" Which prediction it is said in Salem, came true--Master Noyes dying of an internal hemorrhage bleeding profusely at the mouth. It was not a scene that men of sound and kindly hearts would wish to witness; and yet Joseph Putnam and Ellis Raymond felt drawn to it by an irresistible sense of duty. Hard, indeed, it was for Master Raymond; for the necessity of the case compelled him to suppress all show of sympathy with the sufferer, in order that he might more effectually carry out his plans for Dulcibel's escape from the similar penalty that menaced her. And he, therefore, could not even ride around like Master Putnam, with a frowning face, uttering occasional emphatic expressions of his indignation and horror, that the crowd would probably not have endured from any one else. There were some incidents that were especially noticeable. Samuel Wardwell had "confessed" in his fear, but subsequently taken back his false confession, and met his death. While he was speaking at the foot of the gallows declaring his innocence, the tobacco smoke from the pipe of the executioner, blew into his face and interrupted him. Then one of the accusing girls laughed out, and said that "the Devil did hinder him," but Joseph Putnam cried, "If the Devil does hinder him, then it is good proof that he is not one of his." At which some few of the crowd applauded; while others said that Master Putnam himself was no better than he ought to be. The Reverend Master Burroughs, when upon the ladder, addressing the crowd, asserted earnestly his entire innocence. Such was the effect of his words that Master Raymond even hoped that an effort would be made to rescue him. But one of the "afflicted girls" cried out, "See! there stands the black man in the air at his side." Then another said, "The black man is telling him what to say." But Master Burroughs answered: "Then I will repeat the Lord's prayer. Would the Devil tell me to say that?" But when he had ended, Master Cotton Mather, who was riding around on his horse, said to the people that "the Devil often transformed himself into an angel of light; and that Master Burroughs was not a rightly ordained minister;" and the executioner at a sign from the official, cut the matter short by turning off the condemned man. Rebecca Nurse and the other women, with the exception of their last short prayers, said nothing--submitting quietly and composedly to their legal murder. And before the close of one short hour eight lifeless bodies hung dangling beneath the summer sun. Joseph Putnam and Master Raymond, and a few others upon whom the solemn words of the condemned had made an evident impression, turned away from the sad sight, and wiped their tearful eyes. But Master Parris and Master Noyes, and Master Cotton Mather seemed rather exultant than otherwise; though Master Noyes did say; "What a sad thing it is to see eight firebrands of hell hanging there!" But, as Master Cotton Mather more consistently answered: "Why should godly ministers be sad to see the firebrands of hell in the burning." Then, as the hours went on, the bodies were cut down, and stuck into short and shallow graves, dug out with difficulty between the rocks--in some instances, the ground not covering them entirely. There some remained without further attention; but, in the case of others, whose relatives were still true to them, there came loving hands by night, and bore the remains away to find a secret sepulcher, where none could molest them. But the gallows remained on the Hill, where it could be seen from a great distance; causing a thrill of wonder in the bosom of the wandering savage, as of the wandering sailor, gazing at its skeleton outline against the sunset sky from far out at sea--waiting for ten more victims! CHAPTER XXXI. A New Plan of Escape. About this time a new plan of escape was suggested to Master Raymond; coming to him in a note from Dulcibel. Master Philip English, one of the wealthiest inhabitants of Salem town, and his wife Mary, had been arrested--the latter a short time previous to her husband. He was a merchant managing a large business, owning fourteen houses in the town, a wharf, and twenty-one vessels. He had one of the best dwellings in Salem--situated at its eastern end, and having a fine outlook over the adjacent seas. He had probably offended some one in his business transactions; or, supposing that he was safely entrenched in his wealth and high social position, he might have expressed some decided opinions, relative to Mistress Ann Putnam and the "afflicted children." As for his wife, she was a lady of exalted character who had been an only child and had inherited a large property from her father. The deputy-marshall, Manning, came to arrest her in the night time, during her husband's absence. She had retired to her bed; but he was admitted to her chamber, where he read the warrant for her apprehension. He allowed her till morning, however, placing guards around the house that she might not escape. Knowing that such an accusation generally meant conviction and death, "she arose calmly in the morning, attended the family prayers, spoke to a near relative of the best plan for the education of her children, kissed them with great composure, amid their agony of cries and tears, and then told the officer that she was ready to die." On her examination the usual scene ensued, and the usual falsehoods were told. Perhaps the "afflicted girls" were a little more bitter than they would have been, had she not laughed outright at a portion of their testimony. She was a very nice person in her habits, and it was testified against her, that being out one day in the streets of Salem walking around on visits to her friends during a whole morning, notwithstanding the streets were exceedingly sloppy and muddy, it could not be perceived that her shoes and white stockings were soiled in the least. As we have said, at this singular proof of her being a witch, the intelligent lady had laughed outright. And this of course brought out the additional statement, that she had been carried along on the back of an invisible "familiar"--a spectral blue boar--the whole way. Of course this was sufficient, and she was committed for trial. And now wealthy Master Philip English and his wife were both in prison; and he daily concocting plans by which he might find himself on the deck of the fastest sailer of all those twenty-one vessels of his. Uncle Robie had thought this might be also a good opportunity for Dulcibel. And it struck Master Raymond the same way; while Master English had no objection, especially as it was mainly for Dulcibel that the jailer would open the prison doors. And this was better than the violence he had at first contemplated; for, as his vessels gradually began to accumulate in port, owing to the interruption to his business caused by his arrest, he had only to give the word, and a party of his sailors would have broken open the prison some dark night, and released him from captivity. The "Albatross," Master English's fastest sailer at length came into port; and the arrangements were speedily made. The first north-westerly wind, whether the night were clear or stormy--though of course with such a wind it would probably be clear--the attempt was to be made, immediately after midnight. Uncle Robie was to unlock the jail-doors, let them out, lock the doors again behind them, and have a plentiful supply of witch stories to account for the escape. And Master Raymond had some hopes also, that Abigail Williams would come to the jailer's support in anything that seemed to compromise him in the least; for he had promised to send her a beautiful gift from England, when he returned home again. And with such a sharpener to the vision, the precocious child would be able to see even more wonderful things than any she had already testified to. The favorable wind came at length, and with it an exceedingly propitious night; there being a moon just large enough to enable them to see their way, with not enough light to disclose anything sharply. Master Raymond had planned all along to take Dulcibel's horse also with them; and if he could ride the animal, it would obviate the necessity of taking another horse also, and being plagued what to do with it when they arrived at the prison. For he was very desirous that Master Putnam should not be in the least involved in the matter. Master Raymond therefore had been practising up in the woods for about a week, at what the minister had failed so deplorably in, the riding of the little black mare. At first he could absolutely do nothing with her; she would not be ridden by any male biped. But finally he adopted a suggestion of quick-witted Mistress Putnam. He put on a side saddle and a skirt, and rode the animal woman fashion--and all without the least difficulty. The little mare seeming to say by her behavior, "Ah, now, that is sensible. Why did you not do it before?" So, late on the evening appointed for the attempted escape, after taking an affectionate leave of his host and hostess, and putting a few necessary articles of apparel into a portmanteau strapped behind the saddle, Master Raymond started for Salem town. Leaving the village to the right, he made good time to the town, meeting no one at that late hour. He had covered the mare with a large horse-blanket, so that she should not easily be recognized by any one who might happen to meet them. There was a night watchman in Salem town; but a party of sailors had undertaken to get him off the principal street at the appointed hour, by the offer of refreshments at one of their haunts; and by this time he was too full of Jamaica spirits to walk very steadily or see very clearly. Arrived at the prison, Master Raymond found the Captain and mate of the "Albatross" impatiently awaiting him. It was not full time yet, but they concluded to give the signal, three hoots of an owl; which the mate gave with great force and precision. Still all seemed dark and quiet as before. Then they waited, walking up and down to keep the blood in their veins in motion, as the nights were a little cool. "It is full time now," said the Captain, "give the signal again, Brady." Brady gave it--if anything with greater force and precision than before. But not a sign from within. Had the jailer's courage given away at the last moment? Or could he have betrayed them? They paced up and down for an hour longer. It was evident that, for some reason or other, the plan had miscarried. "Well, there is no use awaiting here," exclaimed the Captain of the "Albatross" with an oath; "I am going back to the ship." Master Raymond acquiesced. There was no use in waiting longer. And so he re-donned his petticoat--much to the amusement of the seamen and started back to Master Putnam's arriving there in the darkest hours of the night, just before the breaking of the day. CHAPTER XXXII. Why the Plan Failed. The reason of the failure of the plan of escape may be gathered from a little conversation that took place between Squire Hathorne and Thomas Putnam the morning of the day fixed upon by Master Philip English. Thomas Putnam had called to see the magistrate at the suggestion of that not very admirable but certainly very sharp-witted wife of his. I do not suppose that Thomas Putnam was at all a bad man, but it is a lamentable sight to see, as we so often do, a good kind honest-hearted man made a mere tool of by some keen-witted and unscrupulous woman; in whose goodness he believes, in a kind of small-minded and yet not altogether ignoble spirit of devotion, mainly because she is a woman. Being a woman, she cannot be, as he foolishly supposes, the shallow-hearted, mischievous being that she really is. "Do you know, Squire, how Master English's sailors are talking around the wharves?" "No! What are the rascals saying?" "Well, Mistress Putnam has been told by a friend of hers in the town, that he heard a half-drunken sailor, belonging to one of Master English's vessels, say that they meant to tear down the jail some night, hang the jailers, and carry off their Master and Mistress." "Ah," said the Squire, "this must be looked into." "Another of the sailors is reported to have said, that if the magistrates attempted to hang Mistress English they would hang Squire Hathorne, and Squire Gedney, if they could catch him, by the side of her." "The impudent varlets!" exclaimed Squire Hathorne, his wine-red face growing redder. "Master English shall sweat for this. How many of his sailors are in port now?" "Oh, I suppose there are fifty of them; and all reckless, unprincipled men. To my certain knowledge, there is not a member of church among them." "The godless knaves!" cried the magistrate. "I should like to set the whole lot of them in the stocks, and then whip them out of the town at the cart's tail." "Yes, that is what they deserve, but then we cannot forget that they are necessary to the interests of the town--unless Salem is to give up all her shipping business--and these sailors are so clannish that if you strike one of them, you strike all. No, it seems to me, Squire, we had better take no public notice of their vaporing; but simply adopt means to counteract any plans they may be laying." "Well, what would you suggest, Master Putnam? Has Mistress Putnam any ideas upon the subject? I have always found her a very sensible woman." "Yes, my wife is a very remarkable woman if I do say it," replied Master Putnam. "Her plan is to send Master English and his wife off at once to Boston--that will save us all further trouble with them and their sailors." "A capital idea! It shall be carried out this very day," said the magistrate. "And she also suggests that the young witch woman, Dulcibel Burton, should be sent with them. That friend of my brother Joseph, is still staying around here; and Mistress Putnam does not exactly comprehend his motives for so long a visit." "Ah, indeed--what motive has he?" And Squire Hathorne rubbed his broad forehead. "There was some talk at one time of his keeping company with Mistress Burton." "What, the witch! that is too bad. For he seems like a rather pleasant young gentleman; and I hear he is the heir of a large estate in the old country." "Of course there may be nothing in it--but Mistress Putnam also heard from one of her female cronies the other day, that jailer Foster was at one time a mate on board Captain Burton's vessel." "Ah!" "And you know how very handsome that Mistress Dulcibel is; and, being besides a witch of great power, it seems to Mistress Putnam that it is exposing jailer Foster to very great temptation." "Mistress Putnam is quite correct," said Squire Hathorne. "Mistress Dulcibel had better be transferred to Boston also. There the worshipful Master Haughton has the power and the will to see that all these imps of Satan are kept safely." "As the seamen may be lying around and make a disturbance if the removal comes to their knowledge, Mistress Putnam suggested that it had better not be done until evening. It would be a night ride; but then, as Mistress Putnam said, witches rather preferred to make their journeys in the night time--so that it would be a positive kindness to the prisoners." "Very true! very well thought of!" replied Squire Hathorne, with a grim smile. "And no doubt they will be very thankful that we furnish them with horses instead of broomsticks. Though as for Mistress Dulcibel, I suppose she would prefer her familiar, the black mare, to any other animal." "That was very marvelous. Abigail Williams says that she is certain that the mare, after jumping the gate, never came down to earth again, but flew straight on up into the thundercloud." "And it thundered when the black beast entered the cloud, did it not?" said the magistrate in a sobered tone. He evidently saw nothing unreasonable in the story. "Yes--it thundered--but not the common kind of thunder--it was enough to make your flesh creep. The minister says he is only too thankful that the Satanic beast did throw him off. He might have been carried off to hell with her." "Yes, it was a very foolish thing to get on the back of a witch's familiar," said the magistrate. "It was tempting Providence. And Master Parris has cause for thankfulness that only such a mild reproof as a slight wetting, was allowed to be inflicted upon him. These are perilous times, Master Putnam. Satan is truly going about like a roaring lion, seeking what he may devour. Against this chosen seed,--this little remnant of God's people left upon the whole earth--no wonder that he is tearing and raging." "Ah me, my Christian friend, it is too true! And no wonder that he is so bold, and full of joyful subtlety. For is he not prevailing, in spite of all our efforts? You know there are at least four hundred members of what rightly calls itself the Church of England--for certainly it is not the church of Christ--in Boston alone! When the royal Governor made the town authorities give up the South Church--even our own Church, built with our own money--to their so-called Rector to hold their idolatrous services in, we might have known that Satan was at our doors!" "Oh, that such horrible things should happen in the godly town of Boston!" responded Squire Hathorne. "But when the King interfered between Justice and the Quakers, and forbade the righteous discipline we were exercising upon them, of course a door was opened for all other latitudinarianism and false doctrine. Why, I am told that there are now quite a number of Quakers in Boston; and that they even had the assurance to apply to the magistrates the other day, for permission to erect a meeting-house!" "Impossible!" exclaimed Master Putnam. "They ought to have been whipped out of their presence." "Yes," continued the worthy Magistrate irefully; "but when the King ordered that the right of voting for our rulers should no longer be restricted to church-members; but that every man of fair estate and good moral character, as he phrases it, should be allowed to vote, even if he is not a member at all, he aimed a blow at the very Magistracy itself." "Yes, that is worse than heresy! And how can a man possess a good moral character, without being a member of the true church?" "Of course--that is self-evident. But it shows how the righteous seed is being over-flooded with iniquity, even in its last chosen house; how our Canaan is being given up to the Philistines. And therefore it is, doubtless, that Satan, in the pride of his success, is introducing his emissaries into the very house of the Lord itself; and promising great rewards to them who will bow down and sign their names in his red book, and worship him. Ah! we have fallen on evil times, Master Putnam." And so the two worthy Puritans condoled with each other, until, Master Putnam, bethinking himself that he had some worldly business to attend to, Squire Hathorne proceeded to give the necessary directions for the removal of the three prisoners from Salem to Boston jail. This was accomplished that very night, as Mistress Putnam had suggested; Deputy Marshall Herrick and a constable guarding the party. Dulcibel occupied a pillion behind jailer Foster; Master English and his wife rode together; while Master Herrick and the constable each had a horse to himself. The original plan was for Dulcibel to ride behind Master Herrick; but upon jailer Foster representing that there might be some danger of a rescue, and offering to join the party, it was arranged that he should have special charge of Mistress Dulcibel, whom he represented to Herrick as being in his opinion a most marvelous witch. Uncle Robie's true reason for going, however, was that the jailer in Boston was an old friend of his, and he wished to speak a secret word to him that might insure Dulcibel kinder treatment than was usually given in Boston jail to any alleged transgressor. CHAPTER XXXIII. Mistress Ann Putnam's Fair Warning. In the course of the next day the removal of the three prisoners became known to everybody. Master Raymond wondered when he heard it, whether it was a check-mate to the plan of escape, with which the magistrates, in some way had become acquainted; or whether it was a mere chance coincidence. Finally he satisfied himself that it was the latter--though no doubt suggested by the rather loose threats of Master English's many sailors. When jailer Foster returned, he found means to inform Master Raymond that it had been entirely impossible--so suddenly was the whole thing sprung upon him--to let anyone in their secret know of what was going on. He had not even taken the assistant jailer, his own son, into his confidence, because he did not wish to expose him to needless danger. His son was not required to afford any help, and therefore it would be unwise to incur any risk of punishment. Besides, while Uncle Robie had made up his mind to do some tall lying of his own for the sake of saving innocent lives, he saw no reason why his son, should be placed under a similar necessity. Lying seemed to be absolutely needful in the case; but it was well to do as little of it as possible. From his conversation with Master Herrick, Uncle Robie concluded that nothing had been divulged; and that the magistrates had acted only on the supposition that trouble of some kind might result from the sailors. And, looked at from that point of view, it was quite sufficient to account for the removal of two of the prisoners. As to why Dulcibel also should be sent to Boston, he could get no satisfactory explanation. It seemed in fact to be a matter of mere caprice, so far as uncle Robie could find out. They had pushed on through the night to Boston--about a four hours' slow ride--and delivered the three prisoners safely to the keeper of Boston jail. Uncle Robie adding the assurance to Goodwife Buckley--who acted as Master Raymond's confidential agent in the matter--that he had spoken a word to his old crony who believed no more in witches than he did, which would insure to her as kind treatment as possible. And Robie further said that he had been assured by the Boston jailer, that Mistress Phips, the wife of the Governor, had no sympathy whatever with the witchcraft prosecutions, but a great deal of sympathy for the victims of it. The game was therefore played out at Salem, now that Dulcibel had been transferred to Boston; and Master Raymond began to make arrangements at once to leave the place. In some respects the change of scene was for the worse; for he had no hold upon the Boston jailer, and had no friend there like Joseph Putnam, prepared to go to any length on his behalf. But, on the other hand, in Boston they seemed outside of the circle of Mistress Ann Putnam's powerful and malign influence. This of itself was no small gain; and, thinking over the whole matter, Master Raymond came to the conclusion that perhaps the chances of escape would be even greater in Boston than in Salem. So, in the course of the ensuing week, Master Raymond took an affectionate leave of his kind young host and hostess, and departed for Boston town, avowedly on his way back to his English home. This last was of course brought out prominently in all his leave-takings--he was, after a short stay in Boston, to embark for England. "What shall I send you from England?" was among his last questions to the various members of the "afflicted circle." And one said laughingly one thing, and one another; the young man taking it gravely, and making a note in his little notebook of each request. If things should come to the worst, he was putting himself in a good position to influence the character of the testimony. A hundred pounds in this way would be money well employed. Even to Mistress Ann Putnam he did not hesitate to put the same question, after a friendly leave-taking. Mistress Putnam rather liked the young Englishman; it was mainly against Dulcibel as the friend of her brother-in-law that she had warred; and if Master Raymond had not also been the warm friend and guest of Joseph Putnam, she might have relented in her persecution of Dulcibel for his sake. But her desire to pain and punish Master Joseph,--who had said so many things against her in the Putnam family--overpowered all such sentimental considerations. Besides, what Dulcibel had said of her when before the magistrates, had greatly incensed her. "What shall you send me from England? And are you really going back there?" And she fixed her cold green eyes upon the young man's face. "Oh, yes, I am going back again, like the bad penny," replied Master Raymond smiling. "How soon?" "Oh, I cannot say exactly. Perhaps the Boston gentlemen may be so fascinating that they will detain me longer than I have planned." "Is it because the Salem gentlewomen are so fascinating that you have remained here? We feel quite complimented in the village by the length of your visit." "Yes, I have found the Salem gentlewomen among the most charming of their sex. But you have not told me what I shall send you from London when I return?" "Oh, I leave that entirely with you, and to your own good taste. Perhaps by the time you get back to London, you will not wish to send me anything." "I cannot imagine such a case. But I shall endeavor, as you leave it all to me, to find something pretty and appropriate; something suited to the most gifted person, among men and women, that I have found in the New World." Mistress Putnam's face colored with evident pleasure--even she was not averse to a compliment of this kind; knowing, as she did, that she had a wonderful intellectual capacity for planning and scheming. In fact if she had possessed as large a heart as brain, she would have been a very noble and even wonderful woman. Master Raymond thought he had told no falsehood in calling her the "most gifted"--he considered her so in certain directions. And so they parted--the last words of Mistress Putnam being, the young man thought, very significant ones. "I would not," she said in a light, but still impressive manner, "if I were you, stay a very long time in Boston. There is, I think, something dangerous to the health of strangers in the air of that town, of late. It would be a very great pity for you to catch one of our deadly fevers, and never be able to return to your home and friends. Take my advice now--it is honest and well meant--and do not linger long in the dangerous air of Boston." Thanking her for her solicitude as to his health, Master Raymond shook her thin hand and departed. But all the ride back to Joseph Putnam's, he was thinking over those last words. What was their real meaning? What could they mean but this? "You are going to Boston to try to save Dulcibel Burton. I do not want to hurt you; but I may be compelled to do it. Leave Boston as soon as you can, and spare me the necessity that may arise of denouncing you also. Joseph Putnam, whom I hate, but whose person and household I am for family reasons compelled to respect, when you are in Boston is no longer your protector. I can just as easily, and even far more easily, reach you than I could reach Captain Alden. Beware how you interfere with my plans. Even while I pity you, I shall not spare you!" CHAPTER XXXIV. Master Raymond Goes Again to Boston. Master Raymond had agreed to keep his friend Joseph Putnam informed by letter of his movements--for there had been a postal system established a number of years before through the Massachusetts colony--but of course he had to be very careful as to what he put upon paper; the Puritan official mind not being over-scrupulous as to the means it took of attaining its ends. He had brought excellent letters to persons of the highest character in Boston, and had received invitations from many of them to make his home in their houses--for the Boston people of all classes, and especially the wealthy, obeyed the Scriptural injunction, and were "given to hospitality;" which I believe is true to the present day. But Master Raymond, considering the errand he was on, thought it wisest to take up his abode at an Inn--lest he might involve his entertainers in the peril attending his unlawful but righteous designs. So he took a cheery room at the Red Lion, in the northern part of the town, which was quite a reputable house, and convenient for many purposes not the least being its proximity to the harbor, which made it a favorite resort for the better class of sea-captains. Calling around upon the families to which he had presented letters on his first visit, immediately after his arrival in the colony, he speedily established very pleasant social relations with a good many very different circles. And he soon was able to sum up the condition of affairs in the town as follows: First, there was by far the most numerous and the ruling sect, the Puritans. The previous Governor, shut out by King James, Sir Edmund Andros, had been an Episcopalian; but the present one sent out on the accession of William and Mary, Sir William Phips, was himself a Puritan, sitting under the weekly teachings of the Reverend Master Cotton Mather at the North church. Then there was an Episcopal circle, composed of about four hundred people in all, meeting at King's Chapel, built about three years before, with the Reverend Master Robert Ratcliffe as Rector. Besides these, there was a small number of Quakers, now dwelling in peace, so far as personal manifestations were concerned, being protected by the King's mandate. These had even grown so bold of late, as to be seeking permission to erect a meeting-house; which almost moved the Puritan divines to prophesy famine, earthquakes and pestilence as the results of such an ungodly toleration of heresy. Then there were a number of Baptists, who also now dwelt in peace, under the King's protection. Adding to the foregoing the people without any religion to speak of, who principally belonged to or were connected with the seafaring class, and Master Raymond found that he had a pretty clear idea of the inhabitants of Boston. In relation to the Witchcraft prosecutions, the young Englishman ascertained that the above classes seemed to favor the prosecutions just in proportion to the extent of their Puritan orthodoxy. The great majority of the Puritans believed devoutly in witches, and in the duty of obeying the command, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." And generally in proportion to a Puritan church-member's orthodoxy, was the extent of his belief in witchcraft, and the fierceness of his exterminating zeal. The Episcopalians and the Baptists were either very lukewarm, or else in decided opposition to the prosecutions looking upon them as simply additional proofs of Puritan narrowness, intolerance and bigotry. The Quakers held to the latter opinion even more firmly than the liberal Episcopalians and Baptists: adding to it the belief that it was a judgment allowed to come upon the Puritans, to punish them for their cruelty to God's chosen messengers. As for the seafaring class, they looked upon the whole affair as a piece of madness, which could only overtake people whose contracted notions were a result of perpetually living in one place, and that on the land. And since the arrest of a man so well thought of, and of their own class as Captain Alden, the vocabulary allowed by the law in Boston was entirely too limited to embrace adequately a seaman's emphatic sense of the iniquitous proceedings. As one of them forcibly expressed himself to Master Raymond:--"He would be _condemned_, if he wouldn't like to see the _condemned_ town of Boston, and all its _condemned_ preachers, buried like Port Royal, ten _condemned_ fathoms deep, under the _condemned_ soil upon which it was built!" He used another emphatic word of course, in the place of the word _condemned_; but that doubtless was because at that time they had not our "revised version" of the New Testament. The sea-captain who expressed himself in this emphatic way to Master Raymond, was the captain in whose vessel he had come over from England, and who had made another voyage back and forth since that time. The young man was strolling around the wharves, gazing at the vessels when he had been accosted by the aforesaid captain. At that particular moment however, he had come to a stand, earnestly regarding, as he had several times before, a vessel that was lying anchored out in the stream. After passing some additional words with the captain upon various matters, and especially upon the witches, a subject that every conversation at that time was apt to be very full of, he turned towards the water and said:-- "That seems to be a good craft out there." It was a vessel of two masts, slender and raking, and with a long, low hull--something of the model which a good many years later, went by the name of the Baltimore clipper. "Yes, she is a beauty!" replied the captain. "She looks as if she might be a good sailer." "Good! I reckon she is. The Storm King can show her heels to any vessel that goes out of this port--or out of London either, for that matter." "What is she engaged in?" Here the captain gave a low whistle, and followed it up with a wink. "Buccaneers occasionally, I suppose?" "Oh, Captain Tolley is not so very _condemned_ particular what he does--so that of course it is entirely lawful," and the captain winked again. "He owns his vessel, you see--carries her in his pocket--and has no _condemned_ lot of land-lubber owners on shore who cannot get away if there is any trouble, from the _condemned_ magistrates and constables." "That is an advantage sometimes," said the young man. He was thinking of his own case probably. "Of course it is. Law is a very good thing--in its place. But if I buy a bag of coffee in the East Indies or in South America, why should I have to pay a lot of money on it, before I am allowed to sell it to the people that like coffee in some other country? _Condemn_ it! There's no justice in it." Master Raymond was in no mood just then to argue great moral questions. So he answered by asking:-- "Captain Tolley does not make too many inquiries then when a good offer is made him?" "Do not misunderstand me, young man," replied the captain gravely. "My friend, Captain Tolley, would be the last man to commit piracy, or anything of that kind. But just look at the case. Here Captain Tolley is, off at sea, attending to his proper business. Well, he comes into some _condemned_ port, just to get a little water perhaps, and some fresh provisions; and hears that while he has been away, these _condemned_ land-lubbers have been making some new rules and regulations, without even asking any of us seafaring men anything about it. Then, if we do not obey their foolish rules, they nab us when we come into port again, and fine us--perhaps put us in the bilboes. Now, as a fair man, do you call that justice?" Master Raymond laughed good-humoredly. "I see it has its unfair side," said he. "By the way, I should like to look over that vessel of his. Could you give me a line of introduction to him?" "Of course I can--nothing pleases Tolley more than to have people admire his vessel--even though a landsman's admiration, you know, really cannot seem of much account to a sailor. But I cannot write here; let us adjourn to the Lion." CHAPTER XXXV. Captain Tolley and the Storm King. The next day furnished with a brief note of introduction, Master Raymond, with the aid of a skiff, put himself on the deck of the Storm King. Captain Tolley received him with due courtesy, wondering who the stranger was. The Captain was a well-built, athletic, though not very large man, with a face naturally dark in hue, and bronzed by exposure to the southern sun. As Master Raymond ascertained afterwards, he was the son of an English father and a Spanish mother; and he could speak English, French and Spanish with equal facility. While he considered himself an Englishman of birth, his nationality sat very loosely upon him; and, if need be, he was just as willing to run up the French or Spanish colors on the Storm King, as the red cross of St. George. After reading the note of introduction, Captain Tolley gave a keen look at his visitor. "Yes, the Storm King is a bird and a beauty," said he proudly. "Look at her! See what great wings she has! And what a hull, to cut the seas! She was built after my own plans. Give me plenty of sea-room, and a fair start, and I will laugh at all the gun frigates of the royal navy." "She looks to be all you say," said his visitor admiringly--but rather surprised that not an oath had yet fallen from the lips of the Captain. He had not learned that Captain Tolley, to use his own language, "never washed his ammunition in port or in mild weather." When aroused by a severe storm or other peril, the Captain was transformed into a different man. Then, in the war of the elements, or of man's angry passions, he also lightened and thundered, and swore big guns. "Let us go down into the cabin," said the Captain. Reaching there, he filled a couple of glasses with wine and putting the decanter on the table, invited his visitor to be seated. Then, closing the door, he said with a smile, "nothing that is said inside this cabin ever is told anywhere else." There was that in the speech, bearing and looks of Captain Tolley which inspired Master Raymond with great confidence in him. "I feel that I may trust you, Captain," he said earnestly. "I have done business for a great many gentlemen, and no one ever found me untrue to him," replied Captain Tolley, proudly. "Some things I will not do for anybody, or for any price; but that ends it. I never betray confidence." "Do you believe in witches, Captain?" "Indeed I do." "Well I suppose that settles it," replied the young man in a disappointed tone, rising to his feet. "I know a little witch down in Jamaica, that has been tormenting me almost to death for the last three years. But I tell you she is a beauty--as pretty as, as--the Storm King! She doesn't carry quite as many petticoats though," added the Captain laughing. "Oh! That is the kind of witch you mean!" and Master Raymond sat down again. "It is the only kind that I ever came across--and they are bad enough for me," responded the Captain drily. "I know a little witch of that kind," said Master Raymond, humoring the Captain's fancy; "but she is now in Boston prison, and in danger of her life." "Ah! I think I have heard something of her--very beautiful, is she not? I caught a glimpse of her when I went up to see Captain Alden, who the bigoted fools have got in limbo there. I could not help laughing at Alden--the idea of calling him a witch. Alden is a religious man, you know!" "But it may cost him his life!" "That is what I went to see him about. I offered to come up with a party some night, break open the jail, and carry him off to New York in the Storm King." "Well?" "Oh, you know the better people are not in the jail, but in the jailer's house--having given their promise to Keeper Arnold that they will not try to escape, if thus kindly treated. And besides, if he runs off, they will confiscate his property; of which Alden foolishly has a good deal in houses and lands. So he thinks it the best policy to hold on to his anchor, and see if the storm will not blow itself out." "And so you have no conscientious scruples against breaking the law, by carrying off any of these imprisoned persons?" "Conscientious scruples and the Puritan laws be d----!" exclaimed the Captain; thinking perhaps that this was an occasion when he might with propriety break his rule as to swearing while in port. "Your language expresses my sentiments exactly!" responded the young Englishman, who had never uttered an oath in his life. "Captain, I am betrothed to that young lady you saw when you went to see Captain Alden. If she is ever brought to trial, those Salem hell-hounds will swear away her life. I mean to rescue her--or die with her. I am able and willing to pay you any reasonable price for your aid and assistance, Will you help me?" The Captain sprang to his feet. "Will I help you? The great God dash the Storm King to pieces on her next voyage if I fail you! See here," taking a letter out of a drawer, "it is a profitable offer just made me. But it is a mere matter of merchandise; and this is a matter of a woman's life! You shall pay me what you can afford to, and what you think right; but, money or no money, I and the Storm King, and her brave crew, who will follow wherever I lead, are at your service!" As Captain Tolley uttered these words, in an impassioned, though low voice, and with a glowing face and sparkling blue eyes, Master Raymond thought he had never seen a handsomer man. He grasped the Captain's extended hand, and shook it warmly. "I shall never forget this noble offer," he exclaimed. And he never did forget it; for from that moment the two were life-long friends. "What is your plan?" said the Captain. "A peaceable escape if possible. If not, what you propose to Captain Alden." "I should like the last the best," said the Captain. "Why, it would expose you to penalties--and keep your vessel hereafter out of Boston harbor." "You see that I have an old grudge of my own," replied the Captain. "These Puritan rascals once arrested me for bringing some Quakers from Barbados--good, honest, innocent people, a little touched here, you know,"--and the Captain tapped his broad, brown brow with his finger. "They caught me on shore, fined me, and would have put me in the stocks; but my mate got word of it, we were lying out in the storm, trained two big guns to bear upon the town, and gave them just fifteen minutes to send me on board again. That was twenty years ago, and I have not been here since." "They sent you on board, I suppose?" "Oh, the Saints are not fools," replied the Captain, laughing. "As for being shut out of Boston harbor hereafter, I do not fear that much. The reign of the Saints is nearly over. Do you not see that the Quakers are back, and the Baptists, and the prayer-book men, as they call the Episcopalians!--and they do not touch them, though they would whip the whole of them out of the Province, at the cart's tail, if they dared. But there are Kings in Israel again!" and the Captain laughed heartily. "And the Kings are always better shepherds to the flock than the Priests." "You may have to lie here idle for a while; but I will bear the expense of it," said Master Raymond. "Have the proper papers drawn up, and I will sign them." "No, there shall be no papers between you and me," rejoined the Captain stoutly. "I hate these lawyers' pledges. I never deal with a man, if I can help it, who needs a signed and sealed paper to keep him to his word. I know what you are, and you ought to be able to see by this time what I am. The Storm King shall lie here three months, if need be--and you shall pay me monthly my reasonable charges. But I will make out no bill, and you shall have no receipt, to cause any trouble to anybody, hereafter." "That will suit me," replied Master Raymond, "I shall be in the bar-room of the Red Lion every morning at ten. You must be there too. But we will only nod to each other, unless I have something to tell you. Then I will slip a note into your hand, making an appointment for an interview. I fear there may be spies upon my movements." Captain Tolley assenting to these arrangements, Master Raymond and he again shook hands, and the latter was put ashore in one of the Storm King's boats. It was a little curious that as the young man reached the wharf, ascending a few wooden steps from the boat, whom should he see at a little distance, walking briskly into the town, but one who he thought was Master Thomas Putnam. He could not see the man's face, for his back was toward him; but he felt certain that it was the loving and obedient husband of Mistress Ann Putnam. CHAPTER XXXVI. Sir William Phips and Lady Mary. When Mistress Dulcibel Burton, in company with Master Philip English and his wife, arrived at Boston jail, and were delivered into the care of Keeper Arnold, they received far better treatment than they had expected. The prison itself, situated in a portion of Boston which is now considered the centre of fashion and elegance, was one of those cruel Bridewells, which were a befitting illustration of what some suppose to have been the superior manners and customs of the "good old times." It was built of stone, its walls being three feet thick. Its windows were barred with iron to prevent escape; but being without glazed sashes, the wind and rain and snow and cold of winter found ready access to the cells within. The doors were covered with the large heads of iron spikes--the cells being formed by partitions of heavy plank. And the passage ways of the prison were described by one who had been confined in this Boston Bridewell, as being "like the dark valley of the shadow of death." But the jailers seem to have been more humane than the builders of the prison; and those awaiting trial, especially, were frequently allowed rooms in the Keeper's house--probably always paying well, however, for the privilege. Thus, as Captain Tolley had said, Captain Alden was confined in Keeper Arnold's house; and, when the party in which the readers of this story are especially interested, arrived late at night from Salem, they were taken to comparatively comfortable apartments. The jailer knew that Master Philip English was a very wealthy man; and, as for Dulcibel, Uncle Robie did not forget to say to his old crony Arnold, among other favorable things, that she not only had warm friends, among the best people of Salem, but that in her own right, she possessed a very pretty little fortune, and was fully able to pay a good price for any favors extended to her. The magistrates in Salem had refused to take bail for Captain Alden; but Master English was soon able to make an arrangement, by which he and his wife were allowed the freedom of the town in the daytime; it being understood that they should return regularly, and pass the night in the jail--or, speaking strictly, in the Keeper's house. For things in Boston were different from what they were at Salem. In Salem the Puritan spirit reigned supreme in magistrates and in ministers. But in Boston, there was, as we have said, a strong anti-Puritan influence. The officials sent over from England were generally Episcopalians--the officers of the English men-of-war frequently in port, also were generally Episcopalians. And though the present Governor, Sir William Phips, was a member of the North Church, the Reverend Cotton Mather taking the place of his father, the Reverend Increase Mather--and though the Governor was greatly under the influence of that dogmatic and superstitious divine--his wife, Lady Mary, was utterly opposed to the whole witchcraft delusion and persecution. Sir William himself had quite a romantic career. Starting in life as one of the later offspring of a father and mother who had twenty-six children, and had come as poor emigrants to Maine, he was a simple and ignorant caretaker of sheep until eighteen years of age. Then he became a ship carpenter; and at the age of twenty-two went to Boston, working at his trade in the day time, and learning how to read and write at night. In Boston he had the good fortune to capture the heart of a fair widow by the name of Mistress Hull, who was a daughter of Captain Robert Spencer. With her hand he received a fair estate; which was the beginning of a large fortune. For, it enabled him to set up a ship-yard of his own; and by ventures to recover lost treasure, sunk in shipwrecked Spanish galleons, under the patronage of the Duke of Albemarle, he took back to England at one time the large amount of £300,000 in gold, silver and precious stones, of which his share was £16,000--and in addition a gold cup, valued at £1,000 presented to his wife Mary. And such was the able conduct and the strict integrity he had shown in the face of many difficulties and temptations, that King James knighted him, making him Sir William. Now, through his own deserts, and the influence of the Reverend Increase Mather, agent in England of the colony, he was Governor-in-Chief of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, and Captain General (for military purposes) of all New England. And he was living in that "fair brick house in Green lane," which, years before, he had promised his wife that he would some day build for her to live in. Lady Mary was a very sweet, nice woman; but she had a will of her own, and never could be persuaded that Sir William's rise in the world was not owing entirely to her having taken pity on him, and married below her station. And really there was considerable truth in this view of the matter, which she was not inclined to have him forget; and Sir William, being a manly and generous, though at times rather choleric gentleman, generally admitted the truth of her assertion that "she had made him," rather than have any controversy with her about it. One of the first acts of Sir William on arriving to fill his position as Governor, was to order chains put upon all the alleged witches in the prisons. In this order might be very plainly traced the hand of his pastor, the Reverend Cotton Mather. Lady Mary was outraged by such a command. One of her first visits had been to the jail, to see Captain Alden, whom she knew well. Keeper Arnold had shown her the order. "Put on the irons," said Lady Mary. The jailer did so. "Now that you have obeyed Sir William, take them off again." The jailer smiled, but hesitated. "Do as I command you, and I will be accountable to Sir William." Very gladly did Keeper Arnold obey--he had no faith in such accusations, brought against some of the best behaved people he ever had in his charge. "Now, do the same to all the other prisoners!" commanded the spirited lady. "I may as well be hung for a cow as a calf," said the jailer laughing--and he went gravely with one pair of fetters all through the cells, complying literally with the new Governor's orders. Of course this soon got to the ears of the Rev. Cotton Mather, who went in high indignation to the Governor. But the latter seemed to be very much amused, and could not be brought to manifest any great amount of indignation. "You know that Lady Mary has a will of her own," said he to his pastor. "If you choose to go and talk to her, I will take you to her boudoir; but I am not anxious to get into hot water for the sake of a few witches." The minister thought of it a moment; but then concluded wisely not to go. For, as Lady Mary said to her husband afterwards, "I wish that you had brought him to me. I would have told him just what I think of him, and his superstitious, hard-hearted doings. For me, I never mean to enter North Church more. I shall go hereafter to South Church; Masters Willard and Moody have some Christian charity left in them." "I think you are too hard on Master Cotton Mather, my dear," replied Sir William mildly. "Too hard, am I? What would you say if those girl imps at Salem should accuse me next! Your own loving wife,--to the world." "Oh, my dear wife, that is too monstrous even to think of!" "No more monstrous than their accusation of Mistress English of Salem, and her husband. You know them--what do you think of that?" "Certainly, that is very singular and impossible; but Master Mather says--" "Master Mather ought to be hung himself," said the indignant lady; "for he has helped to murder better people than he is, a great deal." "My dear, I must remonstrate--" "And there is Captain Alden--he is a witch, too, it seems!" And Lady Mary laughed scornfully. "Why not you too? You are no better a man than Captain Alden." "Oh, the Captain shall not be hurt." "It will not be through any mercy of his judges then. But, answer my question: what will you do, if they dare to accuse me? Answer me that!" "You certainly are not serious, Lady Mary?" "I am perfectly serious. I have heard already a whisper from Salem that they are thinking of it. They even have wished me warned against the consequences of my high-handed proceedings. Now if they cry out against me, what will you do?" We have said that Sir William was naturally choleric--though he always put a strong constraint upon himself when talking with his wife, whom he really loved; but now he started to his feet. "If they dare to breathe a whisper against you, my wife, Lady Mary, I will blow the whole concern to perdition! Confound it, Madam, there are limits to everything!" She went up to him and put her arm around his neck and kissed him. "I thought that before they touched me, they would have to chain the lion that lies at my door," she said proudly and affectionately; for, notwithstanding these little tiffs, she really was fond of her husband, and proud of his romantic career. But--coming back to our sheep--Dulcibel not having the same amount of wealth and influence behind her as Master English had, was very well contented at being allowed a room in Keeper Arnold's house; and was on the whole getting along very comfortably. Master Raymond had seen her soon after his arrival, but it was in company with the jailer; the principal result being that he had secretly passed her a letter, and had assured himself that she was not in a suffering condition. But things of late were looking brighter, for Master Raymond had made the acquaintance of Lady Mary through a friend to whom he had letters from England, and Lady Mary had begun to take an interest in Dulcibel, whom she had seen on one of her visits to Mistress English. Through Lady Mary, in some way, Dulcibel hoped to escape from the prison; trusting that, if once at large, Master Raymond would be able to provide for her safety. But there was one great difficulty. She, with the others, had given her word to the Keeper not to escape, as the price of her present exemption from confinement in an exposed, unhealthy cell. How this promise was to be managed, neither of them had been able to think of. Keeper Arnold might be approached; but Dulcibel feared not--at least under present circumstances. If brought to trial and convicted then to save her life, Dulcibel thought he might be persuaded to aid her. As to breaking her word to the Keeper, that never entered the mind of the truthful maiden, or of her lover. Death even was more endurable than the thought of dishonor--if they had thought of the matter at all. But as I have said, they never even thought of a such thing. And therefore how to manage the affair was a very perplexing question. CHAPTER XXXVII. The First Rattle of the Rattlesnake. One day about this time Master Raymond was sitting in the porch of the Red Lion, thinking over a sight he had just seen;--a man had passed by wearing on the back of his drab coat a capital I two inches long, cut out of black cloth, and sewed upon it. On inquiry he found the man had married his deceased wife's sister; and both he and the woman had been first whipped, and then condemned to wear this letter for the rest of their lives, according to the law of the colony.[3] [Footnote 3: See Drake's History of Boston] Master Raymond was puzzling over the matter not being able to make out that any real offence had been committed, when who should walk up to the porch but Master Joseph Putnam. After a hearty hand-shaking between the two, they retired to Master Raymond's apartments. "Well, how are things getting along at Salem?" "Oh, about as usual!" "Any more accusations?" "Plenty of them, people are beginning to find out that the best way to protect themselves is to sham being 'afflicted,' and accuse somebody else." "I saw that a good while ago." "And when a girl or a woman is accused, her relatives and her friends gather around her, and implore her to confess, to save her life. For they have found that not one person who has been accused of being a witch, and has admitted the fact, has been convicted. "And yet it would seem that a confession of witchcraft ought to be a better proof of it, than the mere assertion of possible enemies," responded Master Raymond. "Of course--if there was any show of reason or fairness in the prosecutions, from first to last; but as it is all sheer malice and wickedness, on the part of the accusers, from the beginning to the end, it would be vain to expect any reasonableness or fairness from them." "We must admit, however, that there is some delusion in it. It would be too uncharitable to believe otherwise," said Master Raymond thoughtfully. "There may have been at the very first--on the part of the children," replied Master Putnam. "They might have supposed that Tituba and friendless Sarah Good tormented them--but since then, there has not been more than one part of delusion to twenty parts of wickedness. Why, can any sane man suppose that she-wolf sister-in-law of mine does not know she is lying, when she brings such horrible charges against the best men and women in Salem?" "No, I give up Mistress Ann, she is possessed by a lying devil," admitted Master Raymond. "It is well she does not hear that speech," said Joseph Putnam. "Why?" "Because, up to this time, you seem to have managed to soften her heart a little." "I have tried to. I have thought myself justified in playing a part--as King David once did you know." "It is that which brings me here. I met her at the house of a friend whom I called to see on some business a day or two ago." "Ah!" "She said to me, in that soft purring voice of hers, 'Brother Joseph, I hear that your good friend Master Raymond is still in Boston.' I answered that I believed he was. 'When he took leave of me,' she continued, 'I advised him not to stay long in that town--as it was often a bad climate for strangers. I am sorry he does not take wise counsel.' Then she passed on, and out of the house. Have you any idea what she meant?" Master Raymond studied a moment over it in silence. Then he said:--"It is the first warning of the rattlesnake, I suppose. How many do they usually give before they spring?" "Three, the saying goes. But I guess this rattlesnake cannot be trusted to give more than one." "I was convinced I saw your brother Thomas as I came ashore from the Storm King the other day." "Ah, that explains it then. She understands it all then. She understands it all now just as well as if you had told her." "But why should she pursue so fiendishly an innocent girl like Dulcibel, who is not conscious of ever having offended her?" "Why do tigers slay, and scorpions sting? Because it is their nature, I suppose," replied Master Putnam philosophically. "Because, Mistress Dulcibel openly ridiculed and denounced her and the whole witchcraft business. And you will note that there has not been a single instance of this being done, that the circle of accusers have not seemed maddened to frenzy." "Yes,--there has been one case--your own." "That is true--because I am Thomas Putnam's brother. And, dupe and tool as he is of that she-wolf, and though there is no great amount of love lost between us--still I am his brother! And that protects me. Besides they know that it is as much any two men's lives are worth to attempt to arrest me." "And then you think there is no special enmity against Dulcibel?" "I have not said so. Jethro Sands hates her because she refused him; Leah Herrick wants her driven away, because she herself wants to marry Jethro, and fears Jethro might after all, succeed in getting Dulcibel; and Sister Ann hates her, because--" "Well, because what?" "Oh, it seems too egotistical to say it--because she knows she is one of my dear friends." "She must dislike you very much then?" "She does." "Why?" "Oh, there is no good reason. At the first, she was inclined to like me--but I always knew she was a cold-blooded snake and she-wolf, and I would have nothing to do with her. Then when brother Thomas began to sink his manhood and become the mere dupe and tool of a scheming woman, I remonstrated with him. I think, friend Raymond, that I am as chivalrous as any man ought to be. I admire a woman in her true place as much as any man--and would fight and die for her. But for these men that forget their manhood, these Marc Antonies who yield up their sound reason and their manly strength to the wiles and tears and charms of selfish and ambitious Cleopatras, I have nothing but contempt. There are plenty of them around in all ages of the world, and they generally glory in their shame. Of course brother Thomas did not enjoy very much my mean opinion of his conduct--and as for sister Ann, she has never forgiven me, and never will." "And so you think she hates Dulcibel, mainly because you love her?" "That is about the shape of it," said Master Putnam drily. "That Dulcibel feels for me the affection of a sister, only intensifies my sister-in-law's aversion to her. But then, you see, that merely on the general principle of denouncing all who set themselves in opposition to the so-called afflicted circle, Dulcibel would be accused of witchcraft." "Well, for my part, I think the whole affair can only be accounted for as being a piece of what we men of the world, who do not belong to any church, call devilishness," said Master Raymond hotly. "You see," responded Master Putnam, "that you men of the world have to come to the same conclusion that we church members do. You impute it to 'devilishness' and we to being 'possessed by the devil.' It is about the same thing. And now give me an idea of your latest plans. Perhaps I can forward them in some way, either here or at Salem." CHAPTER XXXVIII. Conflicting Currents in Boston. All this time the under-current of opposition to these criminal proceedings against the alleged witches, was growing stronger, at Boston. The Reverend Samuel Willard and Joshua Moody both ministers of undoubted orthodoxy from the Puritan stand-point, did not scruple to visit the accused in the keeping of jailer Arnold, and sympathize openly with them. Captain Alden and Master Philip English and his wife especially, were persons of too great wealth and reputation not to have many sympathizing friends. On the other hand, the great majority of the Puritans, under the lead of the Reverend Cotton Mather, and the two Salem ministers, Parris and Noyes were determined that the prosecution should go on, until the witches, those children of the Evil One, were thoroughly cast out; even if half of their congregations should have to be hung by the other half. At a recent trial in Salem, one of the "afflicted" had even gone so far as to cry out against the Rev. Master Willard. But the Court, it seemed, was not quite ready for that; for the girl was sent out of court, being told that she must have mistaken the person. When this was reported to Master Willard, it by no means tended to lessen his growing belief that the prosecutions were inspired by evil spirits. Of course in this condition of things, the position of the Governor, Sir William Phips, became a matter of the first importance. As he owed his office mainly to the influence of the Rev. Increase Mather, and sat under the weekly ministrations of his learned son, Cotton Mather, the witch prosecutors had a very great hold upon him. With a good natural intellect, Sir William had received a very scanty education; and was therefore much impressed by the prodigious attainments of such men as the two Mathers. To differ with them on a theological matter seemed to him rather presumptuous. If they did not know what was sound in theology, and right in practise; why was there any use in having ministers at all, or who could be expected to be certain of anything? Then if Sir William turned to the law, he was met by an almost unanimous array of lawyers and judges who endorsed the witchcraft prosecution. Chief-Justice Stoughton, honest and learned Judge Sewall--and nearly all the rest of the judiciary--were sure of the truth in this matter. Not one magistrate could be found in the whole province, to decide as a sensible English judge is reported by tradition to have done, in the case of an old woman who at last acknowledged in the feebleness of her confused intellect that she was a witch, and in the habit of riding about on a broomstick: "Well, as I know of no law that forbids old women riding about on broomsticks, if they fancy that mode of conveyance, you are discharged." But there was not one magistrate at that time, wise or learned enough to make such a sensible decision in the whole of New England. Thus with the almost unanimous bar, and the great preponderance of the clergy, advising him to pursue a certain course, Sir William undoubtedly would have followed it, had he not been a man whose sympathies naturally were with sea-captains, military officers, and other men-of-the-world; and, moreover, if he had not a wife, herself the daughter of a sea-captain, who was an utter disbeliever in her accused friends being witches, and who had moreover a very strong will of her own. Of course if the Governor should come to Lady Mary's opinion, the prosecution might as well be abandoned--for, with a stroke of his pen, he could remit the sentences of all the convicted persons. Left to himself and Lady Mary, he doubtless would have done this; but he wished to continue in his office, and to be a successful Governor; and he knew that to array himself against the prosecution and punishment of the alleged witches was to displease the great majority of the people of the province; including, as I have shown, the most influential persons. In fact, it was simply to retire from his government in disgrace. All this the Reverend Cotton Mather represented to Sir William, with much else of a less worldly, but no doubt still more effective character, based upon various passages of the old Testament rather than upon anything corresponding to them in the New. And so the prosecutions and convictions went on; but the further executions waited upon the Governor's decision. CHAPTER XXXIX. The Rattlesnake Makes a Spring. It was a Thursday afternoon, and the "afflicted circle" was having one of its informal meetings at the house of Mistress Ann Putnam. At these meetings the latest developments were talked over; and all the scandal of the neighborhood, and even of Boston and other towns, gathered and discussed. Thus in the examination of Captain Alden in addition to the material charges of witchcraft against him, which I have noted, were entirely irrelevant slanders of the grossest kind against his moral character which the "afflicted girls" must have gathered from very low and vulgar sources. The only man present on this occasion was Jethro Sands; and the girls, especially Leah Herrick, could not but wonder who now was to be "cried out against," that Jethro was brought into their counsels. It is a curious natural instinct which leads every faculty--even the basest--to crave more food in proportion to the extent in which it has been already gratified. In the first place, the "afflicted" girls no doubt had their little spites, revenges, and jealousies to indulge, but afterwards they seemed to "cry out" against those of whom they hardly knew anything, either to oblige another of the party, or to punish for an expressed disbelief in their sincerity, or even out of the mere wantonness of power to do evil. Mistress Ann Putnam opened the serious business of the afternoon, after an hour or so had been spent in gossip and tale-bearing, by an account of some recent troubles of hers. "A few nights ago," said she, "I awakened in the middle of the night with choking and strangling. I knew at once that a new 'evil hand' was upon me; for the torment was different from any I had ever experienced. I thought the hand that grasped me around the throat would have killed me--and there was a heavy weight upon my breast, so that I could hardly breathe. I clutched at the thing that pressed upon my breast, and it felt hard and bony like a horse's hoof--and it was a horse. By the faint moonlight I saw it was the wild black 'familiar' that belongs to the snake-marked witch, Dulcibel Burton. But the hand that grasped my throat was the strong hand of a man. I caught a sight of his face. I knew it well. But I pity him so much that I hesitate to reveal it. I feel as if I would almost rather suffer myself, than accuse so fine a young man as he seemed to be of such wicked conduct." "But it appears to me that it is your duty to expose him, Mistress Putnam," said Jethro Sands. "I know the young man whose spectre you saw, for he and that black witch of a mare seem to be making their nightly rounds together. They 'afflicted' me the other night the same way. I flung them off; and I asked him what he meant by acting in that way? And he said he was a lover of the witch Dulcibel; who was one of the queens of Hell--I might know that by the snake-mark on her bosom. And she had told him that he must afflict all those who had testified against her; and she would lend him her 'familiar,' the black mare, to help him do it." By this time, even the dullest of the girls of course saw very plainly who was being aimed at; but Mistress Putnam added, "upon learning that Master Jethro had also been afflicted by this person, I had very little doubt that I should find the guilty young man had been doing the same to all of you; for we have seen heretofore that when these witches attack one of us, they attack all, hating all for the same reason, that we expose and denounce them. I may add that I have also heard that the young man in question is now in Boston doing all he can in aid of the snake-witch Dulcibel Burton; and representing all of us to Lady Mary Phips and other influential persons, as being untruthful and malicious accusers of innocent people." Here she turned to one who had always been her right-hand as it were, and said:--"I suppose you have been tormented in the same way, dear Abigail?" Ann Putnam, her daughter, however, that precocious and unmanageable girl of twelve, here broke in: "I think my mother is entirely mistaken. I was treated just the same way about a week ago; but it was not the spectre of Master Raymond at all--it was the spectre of another man whom I never saw before. It was not at all like Master Raymond; and I, for one, will not join in crying out against him." In those old times, parents were treated with a much greater show, at least, of respect and veneration than they are at present; and therefore Mistress Putnam was greatly shocked at her daughter's language; but her daughter was well known to all present as an exceptional child, being very forward and self-willed, and therefore her mother simply said, "I had not expected such unkind behavior from you, Ann." "Master Raymond has been very kind to all of us, you know--has given us pretty things, and has promised to send us all presents when he gets back from England; and I have heard you and father both say, that the Putnams always stand up for their friends." This reference to the promised presents from England, evidently told all around the circle. They had nothing to gain by "crying out" against Master Raymond, they had something to gain by not doing it; besides, he was a very handsome young man, who had tried to make himself agreeable to almost all of them as he had opportunity. And though Dulcibel's beauty went for nothing in their eyes, a young man's good looks and gallant bearing were something entirely different. And so Abigail Williams, and Mary Walcot, and Mercy Lewis, and Leah Herrick, and Sarah Churchill, and Elizabeth Hubbard all had the same tale to tell with suitable variations, as young Ann Putnam had. They were certain that the face of the "spectre" was not the face of Master Raymond; but of some person they had never before seen. Mercy Lewis and Sarah Churchill, in fact, were inclined to think it was the face of Satan himself; and they all wondered very much that Mistress Putnam could have mistaken such an old and ugly face, for that of the comely young Englishman. As for Leah Herrick, she did not care in her secret heart if Master Raymond were in love with Dulcibel--so that he would only take her out of the country, where there was no danger of Jethro's seeing her any more. All her belief that Dulcibel was a witch was based upon jealousy, and now that it was utterly improbable that Jethro would ever turn his thoughts in that direction again, she had no hard feeling towards her; while, as she also had reason to expect a handsome present from England, she did not share in the least Jethro's bitterness against the young Englishman. But although Mistress Putnam was thus utterly foiled in her effort to enlist the "afflicted circle" in her support, she was not the woman to give up her settled purpose on that account. She knew well that she was a host in herself, so far as the magistrates were concerned. And, having Jethro Sands to join her, it made up the two witnesses that were absolutely necessary by the law of Massachusetts as of Moses. The "afflicted circle" might not aid her, but it was not likely that they would openly revolt, and take part against her in public; and so she went the very next morning in company with that obedient tool, her husband and Jethro Sands, to the office of Squire Hathorne, and got him to issue a warrant for the arrest of Master Ellis Raymond, on the usual charge of practicing witchcraft. CHAPTER XL. An Interview with Lady Mary. Master Raymond, having obtained an introduction to the Governor's wife, Lady Mary, lost no time in endeavoring to "cultivate the amenities of life," so far as that very influential person was concerned. He had paid the most deferential court to her on several occasions where he had been able to meet her socially; and had impressed the Governor's lady very favorably, as being an unusually handsome, well-bred and highly cultivated young man. A comely and high-spirited lady of forty, she was better pleased to be the recipient of the courteous and deferential attentions of a young Englishman of good connections like Master Raymond, than even to listen to the wise and weighty counsel of so learned a man as Master Cotton Mather. Only in the last minutes of their last meeting however, when handing her ladyship to her carriage, did Master Raymond feel at liberty to ask her if he could have a short private interview with her the next morning. She looked a little surprised, and then said, "Of course, Master Raymond." "At what hour will it suit your ladyship?" "At twelve, precisely, I have an engagement at one;" and the carriage drove off. A minute or two before twelve, Master Raymond was at the Governor's house in Green lane; and was duly admitted, as one expected, and shown into her ladyship's boudoir. "Now, come right to the point, Master Raymond; and tell me what I can do for you," said her ladyship smiling. "If I can help you, I will; if I cannot, or must not, I shall say so at once--and you must continue to be just as good a friend to me as ever." "I promise that to your ladyship," replied the young man earnestly. He really liked and admired Lady Mary very much. "Is it love, or money?--young men always want one of these." "Your ladyship is as quick-witted in this as in everything else." "Well, which is it?" "Love." "Ah--who?" "Mistress Dulcibel Burton." "What!--not the girl with the snake-mark?" Raymond bowed his head very low in answer. Lady Mary laughed. "She is a witch then, it seems; for she has bewitched you." "We were betrothed to each other only a few days before that absurd and lying charge was made against her." "And her horse--her black mare--that upset the Reverend Master Parris into the duck pond; and then went up into the clouds; and, as Master Cotton Mather solemnly assured me, has never been seen or heard of since--what of it--where is it, really?" "In an out-of-the-way place, up in Master Joseph Putnam's woods," replied the young man smiling. "And you are certain of it?" "As certain as riding the mare for about ten miles will warrant." "Master Mather assured me that no man--except perhaps Satan or one of his imps--could ride her." "Then I must be Satan or one of his imps, I suppose." "How did you manage it?" "I put a side-saddle on the beast; and a woman's skirt on myself." The lady laughed outright. "Oh, that is too good! It reminds me of what Sir William often says, 'Anything can be done, if you know how to do it!' I must tell it to him he will enjoy it so much. And it will be a good thing to plague Master Mather with." "Please do not tell anyone just now," protested the young man earnestly. "It may bring my good friend, Joseph Putnam, into trouble. And it would only make them all angrier than they are with Dulcibel." "Dulcibel--that is a strange name. It is Italian--is it not." "I judge so. It is a family name. I suppose there is Italian blood in the family. At least Mistress Dulcibel looks it." "She does. She is very beautiful--of a kind of strange, fascinating beauty. I do not wonder she bewitched you. Was that serpent mark too from Italy?" "I think it very likely." "Perhaps she is descended from Cleopatra--and that is the mark left by the serpent on the famous queen's breast." "I think it exceedingly probable," said Master Raymond. My readers will have observed before this, that he was an exceedingly polite and politic young man. "Well, and so you want me to get Mistress Dulcibel, this witch descendant of that famous old witch, Cleopatra, out of prison?" "I hoped that, from the well-known kindness of heart of your ladyship, you would be able to do something for us." "You see the difficulty is simply here. I know that all these charges of witchcraft against such good, nice people as Captain Alden, Master and Mistress English, your betrothed Dulcibel, and a hundred others, are mere bigotry and superstition at the best, and sheer spite and maliciousness at the worst--but what can I do? Sir William owes his position to the Reverend Increase Mather--and, besides, not being a greatly learned man himself, is more impressed than he ought to be by the learning of the ministers and the lawyers. I tell him that a learned fool is the greatest fool alive; but still he is much puzzled. If he does not conform to the wishes of the ministers and the judges, who are able to lead the great majority of the people in any direction they choose, he will lose his position as Governor. Now, while this is not so much in itself, it will be a bar to his future advancement--for preferment does not often seek the men who fail, even when they fail from having superior wisdom and nobleness to the multitude." It was evident that Sir William and Lady Mary had talked over this witchcraft matter, and its bearing upon his position, a good many times. And Master Raymond saw very clearly the difficulties of the case. "And still, if the robe of the Governor can only continue to be worn by dyeing it with innocent blood, I think that a man of the natural greatness and nobility of Sir William, would not hesitate as to his decision." "But a new Governor in his place might do worse." "Yes, he might easily do that." "When it comes to taking more lives by his order, then he will decide upon his course. So far he is temporizing," said the lady. "And Dulcibel?" "She is not suffering," was the reply. "Oh, if I only could say the same of the poor old women, and poor young women, now lying in those cold and loathsome cells--innocent of any crime whatever either against God or against man--I should not feel it all here so heavily," and Lady Mary pressed her hand against her heart. "But we are not responsible for it! I have taken off every chain--and do all I dare; while Sir William shuts his eyes to my unlawful doings." "Will you aid her to escape, should her life be in danger? You told me to speak out frankly and to the point." The lady hesitated only for a moment. "I will do all I can--even to putting my own life in peril. When something _must_ be done, come to me again. And now judge me and Sir William kindly; knowing that we are not despots, but compelled to rule somewhat in accordance with the desires of those whom we have been sent here to govern." Lady Mary extended her hand; the young man took it, as he might have taken the hand of his sovereign Queen, and pressed it with his lips. Then he bowed himself out of the boudoir. CHAPTER XLI. Master Raymond is Arrested for Witchcraft. As Master Raymond walked up the street toward the Red Lion, he felt in better spirits. He had secured the aid, if things should come to the worst of a very influential friend--and one who, woman-like, would be apt to go even farther than her word, as noble spirits in such cases are apt to do. Therefore he was comparatively light-hearted. Suddenly he felt a strong grasp upon his shoulder; and turning, he saw a couple of men beside him. One he knew well as deputy-marshall Herrick, of Salem. "You are wanted at Salem, Master Raymond," said Marshall Herrick gravely, producing a paper. Raymond felt a sinking of heart as he glanced over it--it was the warrant for his arrest, issued by Squire Hathorne. "At whose complaint?" he asked, controlling his emotions, and speaking quite calmly and pleasantly. "At the complaint of Mistress Ann Putnam and Master Jethro Sands," replied the officer. "Of witchcraft? That is very curious. For as Dr. Griggs knows, just before I left Salem Farms, I was suffering from 'an evil hand' myself." "Indeed!" said the officer. "When am I to go?" "Immediately. We have provided a horse for you." "I should like to get my valise, and some clothes from the Red Lion." The officer hesitated. Master Raymond smiled pleasantly. "You must be hungry about this time of day, and they have some of the best wine at the Lion I ever tasted. You shall drink a bottle or two with me. You know that a man travels all the better for a good dinner and a bottle of good wine." The officers hesitated no longer. "You are a sensible man, Master Raymond, whether you are a witch or not," said the deputy marshall. "I think if the wine were better and plentier around Salem, there would be fewer witches," rejoined Master Raymond; which the other officer considered a very witty remark, judging by the way he laughed at it. The result of this strategic movement of Master Raymond's, was that he had a couple of very pleasant and good-humored officials to attend him all the way to Salem jail, where they arrived in the course of the evening. Proving that thus by the aid of a little metaphorical oil and sugar, even official machinery could be made to work a good deal smoother than it otherwise would. While the officers themselves expressed their utter disbelief to the people they met, of the truth of the charges that had been brought against Master Raymond; who in truth was himself "an afflicted person," and had been suffering some time from an "evil hand," as the wise Dr. Griggs had declared. The Salem keeper, Uncle Robie, true to his accustomed plan of action, received Master Raymond very gruffly; but after he had got rid of the other professionals, he had a good long talk, and made his cell quite comfortable for him. He also took him in to visit Antipas, who was delighted to see him, and also to hear that Mistress Dulcibel, was quite comfortably lodged with Keeper Arnold. Then the young man threw himself upon his bed, and slept soundly till morning. He did not need much study to decide upon his plans, as he had contemplated such a possibility as that, ever since the arrest of Dulcibel, and had fully made up his mind in what manner he would meet it. If, however, he had known the results of the conference of the "afflicted circle" two days previous, he would have felt more encouraged as to the probable success of the defence he meditated. The constable that had aided the deputy-marshall in making the arrest, had agreed however to send word to Joseph Putnam of what had occurred; and comforted by the thought of having at least one staunch friend to stand by him, Master Raymond had slept soundly even on a prison pallet. The next morning, as early as the rules of the jail would admit, Joseph Putnam came to see him. "I had intended to come and see you in Boston to-day," said Master Joseph, "but the she-wolf was too quick for me." "Why, had you heard anything?" "Yes, and I hardly understand it. Abigail Williams called to see Goodwife Buckley yesterday, and told her in confidence that it was probable you would be cried out against by Sister Ann and Jethro Sands; and to warn me of it." "Abigail Williams!" "Yes; and she also dropped a hint that none of the other 'afflicted girls' had anything to do with it--for they looked upon you as a very nice young man, and a friend." "Well, that is good news indeed," said Master Raymond brightening up. "And I called upon Doctor Griggs on my way here, and he says he is confident there was an 'evil hand' upon you when you were suffering at my house; and he will be on hand at the examination to give his testimony, if it is needed, to that effect." "But that terrible sister-in-law of yours! If she could only be kept away from the examination for half-an-hour; and give me time to impress the magistrates and the people a little." "It might be done perhaps," said Joseph Putnam musing. "Do not be too conscientious about the means, my dear friend," continued Master Raymond. "Do not stand so straight that you lean backward. Remember that this is war and a just war against false witnesses, the shedders of innocent blood, and wicked or deceived rulers. If I am imprisoned, what is to become of Dulcibel? Think of her--do not think of me." Joseph Putnam was greatly agitated. "I will do all I can for both of you. But my soul recoils from anything like deceit, as from wickedness itself. But I will think over it, and see if I cannot devise some way to keep Sister Ann away, for a time or altogether." "Give me at least fifteen minutes to work on the Magistrates, and to enlist the sympathies of the people in my behalf. For me, so far as my conscience is concerned, I should not hesitate to shoot that Jezebel. For the murder of the twenty innocent men and women who have now been put to death, she is mainly responsible. And to kill her who surely deserves to die, might save the lives of fifty others." Joseph Putnam shook his head. "I cannot see the matter in that light, Friend Raymond." "Oh," replied Raymond, "of course I do not mean you should kill Mistress Ann. I only put it as giving my idea of how far _my_ conscience would allow me to go in the matter. Draw her off in some way though--keep her out of the room for awhile--give me a little time to work in." "I will do all I can; you may be sure of that," responded Master Putnam emphatically. Here further confidential conversation was prevented by the entrance of the marshall. CHAPTER XLII. Master Raymond Astonishes the Magistrates. The examination was to commence at three o'clock in the afternoon, and to be held in the Court House in the town, as being more convenient to Squire Hathorne than the meeting-house in the village. As Master Thomas Putnam's house and farm were several miles beyond the village, it made quite a long ride for them to attend the examination. He had arranged with his wife, however, to start immediately after their usual twelve o'clock dinner, taking her behind him on a pillion, as was customary at that day--his daughter Ann being already in town, where she was paying a visit to a friend. He had received however a message about ten o'clock, requesting his immediate presence at Ipswich, on a matter of the most urgent importance; and though he was greatly puzzled by it, he concluded to go at once to Ipswich and go from there direct to Salem town, without coming home again, as it would be very much out of his road to do so. According to this new arrangement, Mistress Ann would take the other horse, and a lady's saddle, and ride to town by herself. They had still a third horse, but that was already in town with her daughter. The Court House was but a short distance from the prison; and, as it was a good Puritan fashion to be punctual to the minute, at three o'clock precisely Squires Hathorne and Corwin were in their arm-chairs, and Master Raymond standing on the raised platform in front of them. As the latter looked carefully around the room, he saw that neither Thomas Putnam nor his mischievous wife, nor his own best friend Joseph Putnam, was present. Squire Hathorne also observed that Mistress Ann Putnam was not present; but, as she was usually very punctual, he concluded that she would be there in a few minutes, and after some whispered words with his colleague, resolved to proceed with the examination. Turning to the young Englishman, he said in his usual stern tones:--"Ellis Raymond, you are brought before authority, upon high suspicion of sundry acts of witchcraft. Now tell us the truth of this matter." But no answer came from the accused. Then, when all eyes were intently regarding him, he gave a wild shriek, and fell outstretched upon the platform. "Let me to him!" said Dr. Griggs, elbowing his way through the crowd. "I said a month ago that an 'evil hand' was upon him; and now I am certain of it." Master Raymond had not been an attentive observer of the recent trials for nothing; and he now gave the audience an exhibition which would compare favorably with the best, even with Mistress Ann Putnam's and Abigail William's. His face became shockingly contorted, and he writhed and twisted and turned convulsively. He tore imaginary spectral hands from around his neck. He pushed imaginary weights from off his breast. He cried, "Take them away! Pray, take them away!" until the whole company were very much affected; and even the magistrates were greatly astounded. Dr. Griggs loosened his collar and unbuttoned his doublet, and had water brought to sprinkle his face keeping up a running fire of words at the same time, to the effect that he knew, and had said, as least a month before, that Master Raymond had an "evil hand" upon him. "Who is it hurts you?" at length asked credulous Squire Hathorne. "See, there is the yellow bird!" cried the young man, staring into vacancy. "He is coming to peck my eyes out! Kill it! kill it!" dashing his hands out from his face violently. "Has no one a sword--pray do try to kill it!" Here an impetuous young villager, standing by, drew his rapier, and stabbed violently in the direction of the supposed spectral bird. "Oh! Oh! You almost killed it! See, there are some of its feathers!" And three yellow feathers were seen floating in the air; being small chicken feathers with which he had been provided that very morning by Uncle Robie, the jailer; and which the adroit Master Raymond rightly thought would have a prodigious effect. And the result was fully equal to his expectations. From that moment, it was evident that he had all the beholders with him; and Squire Hathorne, disposed as he had been to condemn him almost without a hearing, was completely staggered. He had the feathers from the "yellow bird" carefully placed upon his desk, with the purpose of transmitting them at once to Master Cotton Mather who, with these palpable proofs of the reality of the spectral appearance would be able utterly to demolish all the skeptical unbelievers. Finding that such an effect had been produced, Master Raymond allowed himself to regain his composure somewhat. "Mistress Ann Putnam, who is one of the two complainants, unaccountably is not here," said Squire Hathorne. "Master Jethro Sands, what have you to say against this young man? You are the other complainant." "Probably my mother has come to the conclusion that she was mistaken, as I told her; and therefore she has remained at home," said Ann Putnam, the daughter; who was delighted with the feather exhibition, and was secretly wondering how it was done. "Well, what have you to say,--Jethro Sands?" The audience looked around at Jethro with scornful faces, evidently considering him an imposter. What did he know about witches--compared to this rich young man from over the seas? "Tell him you find you were mistaken also," whispered Leah Herrick. "After seeing what we have seen, I withdraw my charges, Squire. I think that Mistress Putnam and myself must have been visited by the spectre of somebody else, and not by Master Raymond." "I hope that next time you will wait until you are quite certain," replied Squire Hathorne gruffly. "Do you know that Master Raymond can have his action against you for very heavy damages, for slander and defamation?" "I certainly am very sorry, and humbly beg Master Raymond's pardon," said Jethro, very much alarmed. He had never thought that the affair might take this turn--as indeed it did in many cases, some six months afterward; and which was a very effective damper upon the spirits of the prosecutors. Then the magistrates could do nothing less than discharge the prisoner; and Master Raymond stepped down from the platform a free man, to be surrounded by quite a circle of sympathizing friends. But his first thanks were due to Dr. Griggs for his professional services. "Doctor, those things you did for me when in the convulsions, relieved me greatly," and he took out his purse. "Yes, Doctor, I insist upon it. Skill like yours is always worth its recompense. We must not muzzle the ox, you know, that treads out the corn." And he put a gold piece into Dr. Grigg's palm--which was not often favored with anything but silver in Salem. Dr. Griggs was glad that he had been able to render him a little service; and said that, if there had been the least necessity for it, he would have gone on the platform, and testified as to the complete absurdity of the charge that that excellent woman, Mistress Ann Putnam, evidently in mistake, had brought against him. Then the "afflicted circle" had to be spoken to, who this afternoon did not appear to be in the least afflicted, but in the very best of spirits. They now felt more admiration for him than ever; and greeted him with great cordiality as he came to where they were standing. "When are you going back to England?" was a frequent question; and he assured them he now hoped to go before many weeks; and then, smiling, added that they would be certain to hear from him. As the crowd thinned out a little, Abigail Williams called him aside; "and did you really see the yellow bird, Master Raymond?" said she archly. "The yellow bird!" replied he dreamily. "Ah! you know that when we that are 'afflicted' go into trances, we are not conscious of all that we see." "For it seemed to me," continued the girl in a low tone, "that those feathers looked very much like chicken feathers." Then she laughed cunningly, and peered into his face. "Indeed!" replied the young man gravely; "well, a chicken's bill, pecking at your eyes, is not a thing to be made light of. I knew of a girl, one of whose eyes was put entirely out by her pet canary." And as he moved at once toward the rest of the group, the quick-witted and precocious child was compelled to follow. The magistrates had left the Court House, with the majority of the people, including Jethro Sands, when who should come in, walking hastily, and his face flushed with hard riding, but Thomas Putnam. "Am I too late? What was done?" he said quickly to Leah Herrick, who was standing near the door. "Oh, the charge broke down, and Master Raymond was discharged." "Ah! Where is my wife?" "She did not come. It was said by your daughter, that she probably found she was mistaken in the person, and stayed for that reason." "I do not believe it--she would have told me. What did Jethro Sands do?" "Oh, he withdrew the charges, so far as he was concerned. There was a great deal more danger that Master Raymond would prove him to be a witch, than he Master Raymond." "I see--it is a case of conspiracy!" exclaimed Master Putnam hotly. "Had you any hand in this, Master Raymond?" turning to the young Englishman, who had drawn near, on his way to the door. "Ah, Master Putnam, glad to see you. You did get here early enough however to witness my triumphant vindication. Here is learned Dr. Griggs, and young Mistress Williams, and your own gifted daughter, and handsome Mistress Herrick, and half-a-dozen others of my old friends who were ready to testify in my behalf, if any testimony had been needed. Make my compliments to Mistress Putnam; and give her my best thanks for her noble course, in confessing by her absence that she was mistaken, and that she had accused the wrong person." The cool assurance with which this was uttered, quite confused Thomas Putnam. Could his wife have stayed away purposely? Perhaps so, for she was accustomed to rapid changes of her plans. But why then had he been lured off on a wild-goose chase all the way to Ipswich? While he was standing there musing, his daughter came up. "I think, father, you and mother, next time, had better take my advice," said that incorrigible and unmanageable young lady; just about as opposite a character to the usual child of that period as could well be imagined. But these witchcraft trials, in which she figured so prominently had utterly demoralized her in this as in certain other respects. CHAPTER XLIII. Why Thomas Putnam Went to Ipswich. What young Master Joseph Putnam undertook to do, he was apt to do pretty thoroughly. When he had once made up his mind to keep both his brother's wife and his brother himself, away from the examination, he had rapidly thought over various plans, and adopted two which he felt pretty certain would not fail. They all involved a little deceit, or at least double dealing--and he hated both those things with a righteous hatred--but it was to prevent a great injustice, and perhaps to save life. As he rode rapidly homeward, turning over various plans, in his mind, he had passed through the village, when he saw some one approaching on what seemed to be the skeleton of an old horse. He at once recognized the rider as an odd character, a carpenter, whom he at one time had occasion to employ in doing some work on a small property he owned in Ipswich. Reining up his horse, Master Putnam stopped to have a chat with the man--whose oddity mainly consisted in his taciturnity, which was broken only by brief and pithy sentences. "A fine day Ezekiel--how are things in Ipswich?" "Grunty!" "Ah! I am sorry to hear it. Why, what is the matter?" "Broomsticks, chiefly." "You mean the witches. That is a bad business. But how shall we mend it?" The old carpenter was too shrewd to commit himself. He glanced at Master Putnam, and then turning his head aside, and giving a little laugh, said, "Burn all the broomsticks." "A good idea," replied Master Putnam, also laughing. "Oh, by the way, Ezekiel, I wonder if you could do a little errand for me?" and the young man took out his purse and began opening it. "You are not in a great hurry, are you?" "Hurry, is for fools!" "You know where my brother Thomas lives? Up this road?" They were just where two roads joined, one leading by his own house, and the other past his brother's. "I wish I knew the road to heaven as well." "You know how to keep silent, and how to talk also, Ezekiel--especially when you are well paid for it?" The old man laughed. "A little bullet sometimes makes a big hole," he said. "I want you to go to my brother Thomas, and say simply these words:--Ipswich Crown and Anchor. Very important indeed. At once. Wait till he comes." "All right." And he held out his hand, into which Master Joseph put as much silver as the old man could make in a whole week's work. "You are not to remember who sent you, or anything else than those words. Perhaps you have been drinking rather too much cider, you know. Do you understand?" The old man's face assumed at once a very dull and vacant expression, and he said in that impressive manner which rather too many glasses is apt to give, "Ipswich. Crown and Anchor. Very important indeed. At once. Wait till he comes." "That will do very well, Ezekiel. But not a word more, mind!" "Tight as a rat-trap," replied the old man--and he turned his skeleton's head, and went up the road towards Thomas Putnam's. Joseph felt certain that this would take his brother to Ipswich. Both of them were greatly interested in a lawsuit with certain of the Ipswich people, regarding the northern boundary of the Putnam farms. Thomas was managing the matter for the family; and was continually on the look-out for fresh evidence to support the Putnam claim. In fact, bright Master Raymond had once said that, between the Salem witches and the Ips-witches, Master Thomas seemed to have no peace of his life. But this was before the witch persecutions had assumed such a tragical aspect. When Ezekiel had found Thomas Putnam and delivered his brief message, without dismounting from his skeleton steed, Master Putnam asked at once who sent the message. "Ipswich. Crown and Anchor. Very important indeed! At once. Wait till he comes," repeated the old man, with a face of the most impassive solemnity, and emphasizing every sentence with his long fore-finger. And that was all Master Thomas could get out of him. That much came just as often as he wished it; but no more--not a word. Mistress Ann Putnam had come out to the gate by that time. "He has been drinking too much cider," she said. This gave a suggestion to Ezekiel. "Yes, too much cider. Rum--steady me!" Mistress Putnam thought that it might produce an effect of that kind, and, going back into the house, soon reappeared with a rather stiff drink of West India rum; which the old man tossed off with no perceptible difficulty. He smiled as he handed back the tin cup which had held it. "Yes--steady now!" he said. "Who gave you the message?" again asked Master Putnam. Ezekiel looked solemn and thoughtful. "Who gave 'im the message," replied Ezekiel slowly. "Yes--who sent you to me?" "Who sent yer--to--me?" again repeated Ezekiel. "Ipswich. Crown and Anchor. At once. Wait till he comes." Then the old man's countenance cleared up, as if everything now must be perfectly satisfactory. "Oh there is no use in trying to get any more out of him--he is too much fuddled," said Mistress Putnam impatiently. "More rum--steady me!" mumbled Ezekiel. "No, not a drop more," said Thomas Putnam peremptorily. "You have had too much already." The old man frowned--and turning the skeleton steed after considerable effort, he gave his parting shot--"Crown and anchor--wait till he comes!" and rode off in a spasmodic trot down the lane. "I shall have to go to Ipswich, and see about this, it may supply the missing link in our chain of evidence!" "But how about this afternoon?" queried his wife. "Oh, I can get to Salem by three o'clock, by fast riding. I will leave the roan horse for you." "Saddle the grey mare, Jehosaphat." And thus it was that his brother Joseph, looking out of his sitting-room window, about an hour after his arrival at home, saw Master Thomas Putnam, on his well-known grey mare, riding along the road past his house on the most direct route to Ipswich. "He is out of the way, for one--if he waits an hour or two for any person to meet him on important business at the Crown and Anchor," thought the young man. "It is important indeed though that he should go, and keep himself out of mischief; and from helping to take any more innocent lives. And when he comes to his senses--in the next world, if not in this--he will thank me for deceiving him. Now let me see whether I can do as good a turn for that delectable wife of his." CHAPTER XLIV. How Master Joseph Circumvented Mistress Ann. About an hour afterwards, Master Joseph saw one of his farm-hands coming over the fields from the direction of his brother's house, which was about two miles almost directly to the west of his own house. Going out to meet him, he said-- "Well, Simon Peter, I see that you got the rake." "Yes, Master Joseph; but they wish me to return it as soon as we can." "That is right. Finish your job in the garden this afternoon, and take it back early tomorrow morning. You can go to work now." The man walked off toward the garden. "Wait a moment!" his master cried. The man stopped. "Anything new at brother Thomas's? Are they all at home?" "No, indeed! Master Thomas has gone off to Ipswich--and little Ann is at Salem town." "I could not borrow a horse, then, of them, you think?" "No, indeed, sir. There is only one left in the stable; and Mistress Putnam means to use that to go to the trial this afternoon." "Oh, well, I do not care much;" and his master walked off to the house, while Simon Peter went to his work. Then, after a somewhat earlier dinner than usual, Master Joseph ordered his young horse, Sweetbriar, saddled; and after kissing his wife "in a scandalous manner"--that is, out of doors, where some one might have seen him do it--he mounted, and cantered off down the lane. The young man loved a good horse and he claimed that Sweetbriar, with a year or two more of age and hardening, would be the fastest horse in the Province. As to temper, the horse was well named; for he could be as sweet, when properly handled, as a rose; and as sharp and briary as any rose-stalk under contrary conditions. A nervous, sensitive, high-mettled animal; Mistress Putnam, though a good rider, said it was too much work to manage him. While her husband always responded that Sweetbriar could be ridden by any one, for he was as gentle as a lamb. Just as Mistress Ann Putnam had got through her dinner, she saw her brother-in-law Joseph riding up the lane. The brothers, as has been seen, differed very widely relative to the Witchcraft prosecutions; but still they visited one another, as they were held together by various family ties, and especially by the old lawsuit against certain of the Ipswich men, to which I have alluded. Therefore Mistress Putnam opened the door and went out to the garden gate, where by this time the young man had dismounted, and fastened his horse. "Is brother Thomas at home, Sister Ann?" "No--he had a call to Ipswich this morning." "Ah--the lawsuit business." "I suppose so. But the messenger was so overcome with liquor, that he could not even remember who sent him." "Why, how could Thomas know where to go then?" "Oh, the man managed to say that his employee would be waiting for Thomas at the "Crown and Anchor," where he usually stops you know." "Well, I am glad that Thomas went. I stopped to see if Jehosaphat could do a little errand for me--I might have sent one of my own men, but I forget matters sometimes." "You will find him at the barn," replied Mistress Putnam, a little anxious to cut short the conversation, as she wished to get ready for her ride to Salem. Going to the barn, Master Joseph soon found Jehosaphat. "How do, Fatty!" this was the not very dignified diminutive into which Jehosaphat had dwindled in common use. "How are you getting along?" "Fair to middlin, sir. Not as well though as on the old place, Master Joseph." "I do not want to interfere with my brother, remember; but if at any time he should not want you any more, remember the old place is still open for you. It was your own fault, you know, that you went." "I did not know when I was well off, Master Joseph. I was a fool, that was all." "I thought so," replied Master Joseph pithily. "But no matter about that now--can you do an errand for me?" "Of course I can--the mistress willing." "Well, I said I wished to send you on an errand, and she told me where to find you." "That is all right then." "Go to Goodman Buckley's, in Salem village, and ask him for a bundle I left--bring it to my house, you know, you can take the roan horse there. And, by the way, Fatty, if you want to stop an hour or two to see the widow Jones's pretty daughter, I guess no great harm will be done." Jehosaphat giggled--but then his face clouded. "But Mistress Putnam wants to take the roan herself this afternoon. The trial comes off, you know." "Oh, it is not a trial--it is only an examination. And it is all fiddlesticks, anyhow. My sister-in-law is ruining her health by all this witch business. But if she insists upon going, I will lend her one of my horses. Therefore that need not keep you." So Jehosaphat, in high glee at having an afternoon's holiday, with the roan horse, threw on the saddle and mounted. As he rode at a rapid canter down the lane, Mistress Ann heard the noise, but supposed it was Master Joseph riding off again,--and did not even trouble herself to look out of the window, especially as she was just then changing her gown. Not long after, coming into the family room, who should she see there, sitting demurely, reading one of the Reverend Cotton Mather's most popular sermons, but the same Master Joseph Putnam whom she had thought she was well rid of. "I thought you had gone. I surely heard you riding down the lane," she said in a surprised tone. "Oh, no, I wanted to speak with you about something." "Who was it then?--I surely heard some one." "Perhaps it was one of those spectral horses, with a spectral rider. As Master Mather says: These are very wonderful and appalling times!" And the young man laughed a little scornfully. "Brother Joseph, I do not care to talk with you upon this question. I greatly regret, as do your brothers and your uncles, that you have gone over to the infidels and the scoffers." "And I regret that they are making such fools of themselves," replied Joseph hotly. "I have no time to discuss this question, brother Joseph," said Mistress Ann with dignity. "I am going to Salem town this afternoon, very much in the cross, to give my testimony against a young friend of yours. Would that I could have been spared this trial!" and his sister-in-law looked up to the ceiling sanctimoniously. As Joseph told his young wife that night, her hypocrisy hardened his heart against her; so that he could have kept her at home by sheer force, if it were necessary, and at all expedient--in fact he would have preferred that rough but sincere way. "If you testify to anything that throws doubt upon Master Raymond's perfect innocency and goodness, you will testify to a lie," replied Master Joseph severely. "As I said, I have no time for argument. Will you be good enough to tell Jehosaphat to saddle the roan for me." "You know that I had your permission to send Fatty off on an errand--and he is not back yet." Mistress Putnam started and bit her lip. She had made a mistake. "I suppose he will be back before long." "I doubt it. I sent him to the village." "Well, I suppose I can put on the saddle myself. Your conscience probably would not allow you to do it--even if common courtesy towards a woman, and that woman your sister, demanded it." "Without deciding the latter point, I should think it almost impossible for me to put a saddle on the roan just now." "Why? I do not understand you." "Because he is doubtless miles away by this time." "Jehosaphat did not take the horse!" "It is precisely what he did do." "He knew I wanted the roan to ride to Salem town this afternoon." "He told me you did; but I said that I thought you would have too much sense to go. Still, if you would go, that I would lend you one of my horses." "Well, where is your horse?" "There, at the door. You can take off my saddle, and put on your side-saddle, and, if you are in a hurry, Sweetbriar can do the distance in half the time that the roan could." Mistress Putnam could have cried with anger and vexation. Like many people of strong and resolute will, she was a good deal of a coward on horseback; and she knew that Sweetbriar was what the farmers called "a young and very skittish animal." Still her determined spirit rose against thus being outdone; besides, she knew well that in a case like this, where none of the "afflicted circle," not even her own daughter, would aid her, the whole thing might fall through if she were not present. So she said, "Well, I will saddle your horse myself." Here Master Joseph relented--because he now felt certain of his game. "I have conscientious scruples against lifting even my little finger to aid you in this unholy business," he said more placidly, "but under the circumstances, I will saddle Sweetbriar for you." So saying, he took off his saddle from the horse, and substituted the side-saddle which he brought from the barn. Then he led Sweetbriar to the horse-block, and his sister-in-law mounted. She glanced at his spurs. "You ride him with spurs, I see. Hand me my riding-whip," she said, pointing to where she had laid it, when she first came out. "I would not strike him, if I were you. He is not used to the whip--it might make him troublesome." Mistress Putnam made no reply; but gathered up the reins, and the horse started down the lane. A singular smile came across the young man's features. He went back and closed the door of the house, and then started in a rapid walk across the field towards his own home. Neither of them thought it mattered that the house was left for a time unprotected. Mistress Putnam knew that a couple of farm-hands were at work in a distant field, who would be back at sundown; and there were so few strollers at that time, that no farmer thought of bolting up his doors and windows when he went to meeting, or to see a neighbor. The way home across the fields was a good deal nearer than to go by the road, as the latter made quite an angle. And, as the young man strode swiftly, on he could see in many places his sister-in-law, riding deliberately along, and approaching the forks of the road, where anyone going to his own house, would turn and ride away from, instead of toward Salem. "When she gets to the forks of the road, look out for squalls," said Master Joseph to himself. For many had been his own fights with Sweetbriar, when the horse wanted to go towards his stable, after a long ride, and his young master wanted him to go in the opposite direction. Sweetbriar had already gone about twenty miles that day--and, besides, had been given only the merest mouthful for dinner, with the object of preparing him for this special occasion. The next swell in the ground afforded the young man an excellent view. Sweetbriar had arrived at the turn which led to his stable; where rest and oats awaited him; and it evidently seemed to Him the height of injustice and unreason to be asked to go all the way back to Salem again. Mistress Ann, however, knew nothing of these previous experiences of the animal, but imputed his insubordinate behavior entirely to self-will and obstinacy. And thus, as the great globe moves around the sun in a perpetual circle, as the result of the two conflicting forces of gravitation and fly-off-it-iveness, so Sweetbriar circled around and around, like a cat chasing his tail, as the result of the conflicting wills of himself and his rider. Master Joseph watched the progress of the whole affair with decided pleasure. "No woman but a witch could get Sweetbriar past that turn," he said to himself, laughing outright, "And no man, who had not a pair of spurs on." At last, getting out of all patience, Mistress Putnam raised her whip and brought it down sharply on her horse's shoulder. This decided the struggle; for, unused to such punishment, the fiery animal reared, and then turning, sprang up the road that led to his stable at a wild gallop. His rider as I have said, was not a very good horse-woman, and she now took hold of the horn of the saddle with her right hand, to enable her to keep her seat; and tried to moderate the gait of the horse with the reins and the voice, abandoning all further resistance to his will as useless. Setting off at a run, Master Joseph was able to reach home just about the same time as his sister-in-law did. "Ah! I am glad you changed your mind, Sister Ann, about going to Salem. It is a great deal more sensible to come and spend the afternoon with Elizabeth." "Very glad to see you, Sister Ann," said Mistress Joseph, coming out to the horse-block, at which Sweetbriar, from force of habit, had stopped. Mistress Ann looked offended, and replied coldly, "I had no intention of coming here this afternoon, Sister Elizabeth; but this vile brute, which Joseph lent me, after sending away my own horse, would neither obey the reins nor the whip." "You rascal!" said Master Joseph severely, addressing the horse. "You do not deserve to have a lady ride you." "Can you not lend me another horse--say the one Elizabeth always rides?" "All the other horses are out at work," replied Master Joseph; "and before I could get one of them in, and at all groomed up, ready for the saddle, I am afraid it would be too late for your purpose." "So I must be compelled to do as you wish, and stay away from the examination?" said Mistress Ann bitterly. "Oh, if you choose, I will put a pillion on Sweetbriar, and see how that works?" replied Master Joseph with a meek and patient expression of countenance, as of one upbraided without cause. "To be sure, Sweetbriar has never been asked to carry double; but he might as well learn now as ever." "That seems to be the only thing that can be done now," and the expression of Mistress Ann's face resembled that of a martyr who was about to be tied to the stake; for riding on a pillion brought the lady always into the closest proximity with the gentleman, and she was now cherishing towards Master Joseph a temper that could hardly be called sisterly. There was necessarily a great waste of time in getting the pillion on Sweetbriar. He never had carried double, and he evidently felt insulted by being asked to do it. Master Joseph glanced at the sun, and knew it must be now full two o'clock. Only by fast riding, would it be possible to get to Salem court-house by three; and the roads, as they then were, did not admit of fast riding except in a few places. It was no easy thing for Mistress Ann to get on Sweetbriar, for the horse backed and sidled off from the horse-block whenever she attempted it--all his sweetness seemed gone by this time, and the briars alone remained. At least fifteen minutes more were lost in this way. But at last the difficult feat was accomplished. "Hold on to me tightly," said the young man, "or you will be thrown off--" for the irritated animal began to curvet around in all directions, manifesting a strong determination to go back to his stable, instead of forward towards Salem. "I think we had better try the other road, and not pass the forks where you had so much trouble with him," said Master Joseph, as the horse went more quietly, going up the first hill. "As you think best," said his sister-in-law, in a sharp tone, "If I had a horse like this I would shoot him!" "Oh, Sweetbriar is good enough usually. I never saw him so violent and troublesome as he is to-day. And I think I know the reason of it." "What is the reason?" "I fear he has an 'evil hand' upon him," said Master Joseph with great solemnity. "Nonsense," replied Mistress Ann sharply. "He has got the wicked One in him; that is the matter with him." "That is about the same thing," said Master Joseph. Now they were at the top of the hill, and the horse broke into tantrums again; requiring all of Master Joseph's skill to prevent his toppling himself and his two riders over one of the many boulders that obstructed the road. "If you do not hold on to me more tightly, Sister Ann, you will be thrown off," said Master Joseph, putting back his right hand to steady her. And Mistress Ann was compelled to lock her arms around him, or take the chance of serious injury from being dashed to the rough highway. The young man would have liked to relieve his feelings by a hearty burst of laughter, as he felt her arms embracing him so warmly, but of course he dared not. They soon came near the main road, running due north and south, and which it was necessary to take, as it led directly down to Salem. Sweetbriar knew that road well--and that he never stopped when once turned to the south on it, short of a six mile ride. He remembered his recent victorious struggle at the Forks, and now resolved upon another battle. All of Master Putnam's efforts--or what seemed so--could not get him headed southward on that road. In truth, burdened as he was, the young man really could not do it, without incurring too much risk to the lady behind him. Those who have ever had such a battle with a wilful, mettlesome horse, know that it often requires the utmost patience and determination on the part of his rider, to come out victorious. The best plan--the writer speaks from some experience--is to pull the animal round in a circle until his brain becomes confused, and then start him off in the right direction. But Sweetbriar evidently had a better brain than usual, for when the whirl came to an end, it always found his pointing like the magnetic needle to the north. It had been Master Joseph's plan to pretend a good deal of earnestness in the struggle which he was certain would come in this place; but he was pleased to find that there was no need of any pretence in the matter. The horse, under the circumstances, the young man having a lady's safety to consult, was the master. Repeated trials only proved it. Whenever the fierce, final tug of war came, Mistress Ann's safety had to be consulted, and the horse had his own way. So, as the result Sweetbriar started off in a sharp canter up, instead of down, the road. "Take me home then," said his sister-in-law--"if you will not take me to Salem." "If I _will_ not," repeated Master Joseph. "I give you my honest word, Sister Ann, that I could not make this horse go down the road, with us two on his back, if I stayed here all the afternoon trying. I should think you must have seen that." "No matter. Take me home." "Besides, we could not get to Salem before four o'clock now, if Sweetbriar went his best and prettiest." "I give it up. Let us turn and go home." "If we turn and go back the way we came, I do not think I shall be able to get this self-willed animal past my own gate." "Well, what do you mean to do?" said the lady bitterly. "Ride on up to Topsfield?" Master Joseph laughed. "No--there is a road strikes off towards your house a short distance above here, and I think I can get you home by it, without any further trouble." "Very well--get me home as soon as you can. I do not feel like any further riding, or much more talking." "Of course it is very aggravating," replied Master Putnam soothingly, "but then you know as Master Parris says, that all these earthly disappointments are our most valuable experiences--teaching us not to set our hopes upon worldly things, but upon those of a more enduring and satisfying character." His sister-in-law's face, that he could not see, she being behind him, wore a look as she listened to this, which could be hardly called evangelical. "You wished very much I know to go this afternoon to Salem," continued Master Joseph, in the same sermonizing tone; "but doubtless your wish has been overruled for good. I think, as a member of church, you should be willing to acquiesce patiently in the singular turn that affairs have taken, and console yourself with the thought that you have been innocently riding these peaceful roads instead of being in Salem, doing perchance an infinite deal of mischief." "No doubt what you are saying seems to you very wise and edifying, Joseph Putnam, but I have a bad headache, and do not care to converse any further." "But you must admit that your projected visit has been frustrated in a very singular, if not remarkable manner?" Master Joseph knew that he had her now at an advantage; she was compelled to listen to everything he chose to say. His saddle was even better in that respect than the minister's pulpit--you might leave a church, but she could not leave the horse. "I do not see anything very miraculous, brother Joseph, in a young man like you having a self-willed and unprincipled horse. In truth, the wonder would be if you had a decent and well-governed animal," replied his sister-in-law wrathfully. The young man smiled at the retort, but she could not see the gleam of sunshine as it passed rapidly over his face; lingering a moment in the soft depths of his sweet blue eyes. There was no smile however in his voice, but the previous solemnity, as he continued:-- "And yet if Balaam's ass could see the angel of the Lord, with his drawn-sword, standing in the way, and barring his further progress in wrongdoing, why might not this horse--who is much more intelligent than an ass--have seen a similar vision?" The young man had begun this speech somewhat in sport; but as he ended it, the assumed tone of solemnity had passed into one of real earnestness. For, as he asked himself, "Why should it not be? This woman with him was bound on a wicked errand. Why should not the angel or the Lord stand in her way also--and the horse see him, even if his riders did not?" Mistress Putnam made no answer. Perhaps now that the young man was really in earnest, what he said made some impression upon her, but, more probably it did not. He, too, relapsed into silence. It seemed to him a good place to stop his preaching, and let his sister-in-law think over what he had said. "Thank Heaven we are here at last!" said the baffled woman, as they rode up to the horse-block at her own door. Sweetbriar stood very quiet, and she stepped on the block, Master Joseph keeping his seat. "Will you dismount and stay to supper, brother Joseph?" said Mistress Ann, in a soft purring tone. Master Joseph fairly started with his surprise, and looked steadily into her dark, inscrutable eyes--eyes like Jael's as she gazed upon sleeping Sisera. "No, I thank you--I expect a friend to supper. I hope brother Thomas heard some good news at Ipswich. Come and see us when you feel like it." And he rode off. As he told his wife afterwards, he would not have taken supper with his sister Ann that evening as he valued his life. And yet perhaps it was all imagination--and he did not see that thing lurking in the depths of his sister-in-law's cold, unfathomable eyes that he thought he did. And yet her testimony against Rebecca Nurse, reads to us, even at this late day, with all the charity that we are disposed to exercise towards things so long past, as cold-blooded, deliberate murder. CHAPTER XLV. The Two Plotters Congratulate Each Other. When Master Joseph arrived home, he told his wife of what a perverse course things had taken, amid his own and her frequent laughter. And then he could do nothing else than walk up and down impatiently, glancing at frequent intervals towards the road, to see if anybody were coming. In the course of an hour or so, nobody appearing and Sweetbriar being sweetened up again by a good feed, he ordered the horse brought out. Then he was persuaded by his wife to recall the order, and wait patiently till sundown. "What impatient creatures you men are!" said Mistress Elizabeth with feminine superiority. "Doubtless he will be along. Give him sufficient time. Now, do not worry, husband mine, but take things patiently." So Master Joseph was induced to control his restlessness and just as soon as he could have been reasonably expected, Master Raymond was seen riding up the lane at a light canter. "Hurrah!" cried Master Joseph, running to meet him. "And is it all over?" "We have smitten Ammon, hip and thigh, from Aroer even till thou come to Minnith!" answered Master Raymond, laughing. "It was you that kept the she-wolf away, I know. How did you do it?" "Come in and I will tell you all about it. And I want to hear how all went off in Salem." After a couple of hours' conversation, broken frequently by irresponsible bursts of laughter, the young men were mutually enlightened; and complimented each other upon the success with which they had worked out their respective schemes--while young Mistress Elizabeth complimented them both, thinking honestly in her innocent heart that two such wonderful young men certainly had never before existed. "How I should like to have seen you astonishing old Squire Hathorne," said Master Joseph. "I am afraid you would have spoiled all by laughing," said his young wife. "You know you never can control your merriment, Joseph." "I cannot? You should have seen me preaching to sister Ann this afternoon. I kept my face all the time as sober as a judge's. You know she had to take it all quietly--she could not even run away from it." "I would have given one of your five-pound Massachusetts notes to see it," said Master Raymond. "And five pounds more to see your brother Thomas stamping up and down the bar-room of the 'Crown and Anchor,' waiting for that Ipswich man to meet him." "I was very careful all through not to tell a direct falsehood," said Master Joseph; "it is bad enough to deceive people, without being guilty of downright lying." "Oh, of course," replied Master Raymond. "I do not know that I told a downright lie either, all day; although I must admit that I acted a pretty big one. But you must deal with fools according to their folly--you know we have Scripture for that." "I do not think I would have done it merely to save myself," said Master Joseph, evidently a little conscience-smitten. "But to save you, my friend, that seems to be different." "And Dulcibel," added Master Raymond. "If I were imprisoned what would become of her?" "Yes, I am glad I did it," responded his friend, regaining his confidence. "I have really hurt neither brother Thomas nor Sister Ann; on the contrary, I have prevented them from doing a great wrong. I am willing to answer for this day's work at the Last Day--and I feel certain that then at least, both of them will thank me for it." "I have no doubt of it," said Mistress Elizabeth who herself brought up in the rigid Puritan school, had felt the same misgivings as her husband, but whose scruples were also removed by this last consideration. As for Master Raymond, he, being more a man of the world, had felt no scruples at playing such a deceitful part. I am afraid, that to save Dulcibel, he would not have scrupled at open and downright lying. Not that he had not all the sensitiveness of an honorable man as to his word; but because he looked upon the whole affair as a piece of malicious wickedness, in defiance of all just law, and which every true-hearted man was bound to oppose and defeat by all means allowable in open or secret warfare. "I suppose you go back to Boston to morrow?" said his host, as they were about to separate for the night. "Yes, immediately after breakfast. This affair is a warning to me, to push my plans to a consummation as soon as possible. I think I know what their next move will be--a shrewd man once said, just think what is the wisest thing for your enemies to do, and provide against that." "What is it?" "Remove the Governor." "Why, I understood he was a mere puppet in the hands of the two Mathers." "He would be perhaps; but there is a Lady Phips." "Ah!' the gray mare is the better horse,' is she, as it is over at brother Thomas's?" "Yes, I think so. Now mark my prediction, friend Joseph; the first blow will be struck at Lady Mary. If Sir William resists, as I feel certain that he will--for he is, if not well educated, a thoroughly manly man--then he will be ousted from his position. You will note that it has been the game all through to strike at any one, man or woman, who came between these vampires and their prey. I know of only one exception." "Ah, who is that?" "Yourself." Master Joseph smiled grimly. "They value their own lives very highly, friend Raymond; and know that to arrest me would be no child's play. Besides, Sweetbriar is never long unsaddled; and he is the fastest horse in Salem." "Yes, and to add to all that, you are a Putnam; and your wife is closely connected with Squire Hathorne." "There may be something in that," said his friend. "Yes, even Mistress Ann has her limits, which her husband--submissive in so many things--will not allow her to pass. But we are both a little tired, after such an eventful day. Good night!" CHAPTER XLVI. Mistress Ann's Opinion of the Matter. While the foregoing conversation was taking place, one of a very different kind was passing between Mistress Ann and her worthy husband. He had gathered up all the particulars he could of the examination and had brought them home to his wife for her instruction. After listening to all that he had to tell, with at least outward calmness, she said bitterly: "The whole thing was a trick, you see, to keep you and me away from Salem." "Do you think so? Do you think then, that no man really wanted to see me at Ipswich?" "It is as plain as the nose on your face," replied his wife. "You were to be decoyed off to Ipswich, my horse sent out of the way, and then Joseph's madcap horse offered to me, they knowing well that the worthless creature would not behave himself with any woman on his back." "Oh, pshaw, Ann; you do not mean that my simple-hearted brother, Joseph Putnam, ever planned and carried out a subtle scheme of that kind?" said honest Thomas, with an older brother's undervaluation of the capabilities of a mere boy like Joseph. "I do not say that Joseph thought it all out, for very probably he did not; doubtless that Master Raymond put him up to it--for he seems cunning and unprincipled enough for anything, judging, by what you have told me of his ridiculous doings." "You may call them ridiculous, Ann; but they impressed everybody very much indeed. Dr. Griggs, told me that he had no doubt whatever that an 'evil hand' was on him." "Dr. Griggs is an old simpleton," said his wife crossly. "And even Squire Hathorne says that he never saw a stronger case of spectral persecution. Why, when one of the young men thrust the point of his rapier at the yellow bird, some of its feathers were cut off and came fluttering to the ground. Squire Hathorne says he never saw anything more wonderful." "Nonsense--it is all trickery!" "Trickery? Why, my dear wife, the Squire has the feathers!--and he means to send them at once to Master Cotton Mather by a special messenger, to confute all the scoffers and unbelievers in Boston and Plymouth!" A scornful reply was at the end of his wife's tongue but, on second thought, she did not allow it to get any farther. Suppose that she did convince her husband and Squire Hathorne that they had been grossly deceived and imposed upon--and that Master Raymond's apparent afflictions and spectral appearance were the result of skilful juggling, what then? Would their enlightenment stop there? How about the pins that the girls had concealed around their necks, and taken up with their mouths? How about Mary Walcot secretly biting herself, and then screaming out that good Rebecca Nurse had bitten her? How about the little prints on the arms of the "afflicted girls," which they allowed were made by the teeth of little Dorcas Good, that child not five years old; and which Mistress Ann knew were made by the girls themselves? How about the bites and streaks and bruises which she herself had shown as the visible proof that the spectre of good Rebecca Nurse, then lying in jail, was biting her and beating her with her chains? For Edward Putnam had sworn: "I saw the marks both of bite and chains." Perhaps it was safer to let Master Raymond's juggling go unexposed, considering that she herself and the "afflicted girls" had done so very much of it. Therefore she said, "I have no faith in Master Raymond nevertheless; no more than Moses had in King Pharaoh's sorcerers, when they did the very same miracles before the king that he had done. I believe him now to be a cunning and a very bad young man, and I think if I had been on the spot, instead of his being at this very moment as I have very little doubt, over at brother's, where they are congratulating each other on the success of their unprincipled plans, Master Raymond would now be lying in Salem jail." "Probably you are correct, my dear," responded her husband meekly; "and I think it not unlikely that Master Raymond may have thought the same, and planned to keep you away--but it was evident to me, that if the 'afflicted girls' had taken one side or the other in the matter, it would not have been yours. Why, even our own daughter Ann, was laughing and joking with him when I entered the court room." "Yes," said his wife disdainfully--"that is girl-nature, all over the earth! Just put a handsome young man before them, who has seen the world, and is full of his smiles and flatteries and cajolements, and the wisest of women can do nothing with them. But the cold years bring them out of that!" she added bitterly. "They find what they call love, is a folly and a snare." Her husband looked out of the window into the dark night, and made no reply to this outburst. He had always loved his wife, and he thought, when he married her, that she loved him--although he was an excellent match, so far as property and family were concerned. Still she would occasionally talk in this way; and he hoped and trusted that it did not mean much. "I think myself," he said at length, "that it is quite as much the pretty gifts he has made them, and has promised to send them from England, as his handsome face and pleasant manners." "Oh, of course, it all goes together. They are a set of mere giggling girls; and that is all you can make of them. And our daughter Ann is as bad as any of the lot. I wish she did not take so much after your family, Thomas." This roused her husband a little. "I am sure, Ann, that our family are much stronger and healthier than your own are. And as to Ann's being like the other girls, I wish she was. She is about the only delicate and nervous one among them." "Well, Thomas, if you have got at last upon that matter of the superiority of the Putnams to everybody else in the Province, I think I shall go to bed," retorted his wife. "That is the only thing that you are thoroughly unreasonable about. But I do not think you ever had a single minister, or any learned scholar, in your family, or ever owned a whole island, in the Merrimack river as my family, the Harmons, always have done, since the country was first settled--and probably always shall, for the next five hundred years." To this Thomas Putnam had no answer. He knew well that he had no minister and no island in his family--and those two things, in his wife's estimation, were things that no family of any reputation should be without. He had not brought on the discussion, although his wife had accused him of so doing, and had only asserted what he thought the truth in stating that the Putnams were the stronger and sturdier race. "I do not wish to hurt your feelings, Thomas, in reminding you of these things," continued his wife, finding he was not intending to reply; "I will admit that your family is a very reputable and worthy one, even if it is not especially gifted with intellect like the Harmons, else you may be sure that I should not have married into it. But I have a headache, and do not wish to continue this discussion any longer, as it is unpleasant to me, and besides in very bad taste." And so, taking the hint, Master Putnam, like a dutiful husband, who really loved his somewhat peevish and fretful wife, acknowledged by his silence in the future that the Harmons were much superior to any family that could not boast of possessing a minister and an island; the latter for five hundred years! CHAPTER XLVII. Master Raymond Visits Lady Mary. When Master Raymond returned to Boston, he found that an important event had taken place in his absence. Captain Alden and Master Philip English and his wife, had all escaped from prison, and were nowhere to be found. How Captain Alden had managed things with the jailer the young man was not able to ascertain--probably however, by a liberal use of money. As for Master English and his wife, they were, as I have already said, at liberty in the day time, under heavy bonds; and had nothing to do but walk off sometime between sunrise and sundown. As Master English's ship, "The Porcupine," had been lying for a week or two in Boston harbor, and left with a brisk northwest wind early in the morning of the day when they were reported missing, it was not difficult for anyone to surmise as to their mode of escape. As to Captain Alden, he might or might not have gone with them. As was natural, there was a good deal of righteous indignation expressed by all in authority. The jailer was reprimanded for his carelessness in the case of Captain Alden, and warned that if another prisoner escaped, he would forfeit his, of late, very profitable position. And the large properties of both gentlemen were attached and held as being subject to confiscation. But while the magistrates and officials usually were in earnest in these proceedings, it was generally believed that the Governor, influenced by Lady Mary, had secretly favored the escaping parties. The two ministers of South Church--Masters Willard and Moody--were also known to have frequently visited the Captain and Master English in their confinement, and to have expressed themselves very freely in public, relative to the absurdity of the charges which had been made against them. Master Moody had even gone so far as to preach a sermon on the text, 'When they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another,' which was supposed by many to have a direct bearing on the case of the accused. And it is certain that soon afterwards, the Reverend Master Moody found it expedient to resign his position in South Church and go back to his old home in Portsmouth. Anxious to learn the true inwardness of all this matter, Master Raymond called a few days after his return to see Lady Mary. Upon sending in his name, a maid immediately appeared, and he was taken as before to the boudoir where he found her ladyship eagerly awaiting him. "And so you are safely out of the lion's den, Master Raymond," said she, laughing. "I heard you had passed through securely." The young man smiled. "Yes, thanks to Providence, and to a good friend of mine in Salem." "Tell me all about it," said the lady. "I have had the magisterial account already, and now wish to have yours." "Will your ladyship pardon me if I ask a question first? I am so anxious to hear about Mistress Dulcibel. Have you seen her lately--and is she well?" "As well and as blooming as ever. The keeper and his wife treat her very kindly--and I think would continue to do so--even if the supply of British gold pieces were to fail. By the way, she might be on the high seas now--or rather in New York--if she had so chosen." "I wish she had. Why did she not go with them?" "Because your arrest complicated things so. She would not go and leave you in the hands of the Philistines." "Oh, that was foolish." "I think so, too; but I do not think that you are exactly the person to say so," responded the lady, a little offended at what seemed a want of appreciation of the sacrifice that Dulcibel had made on his account. But Master Raymond appeared not to notice the rebuke. He simply added: "If I could have been there to counsel her, I would have convinced her that I was in no serious danger--for, even if imprisoned, I do not think there is a jail in the Province that could hold me." "Well, there was a difficulty with the Keeper also--for she had given her word, you know, not to escape, when she was taken into his house." "But Captain Alden had also given his word. How did he manage it?" "I do not know," replied the lady. "But, to a hint dropped by Dulcibel, the jailer shook his head resolutely, and said that no money would tempt him." "The difficulty in her case then remains the same as ever," said the young man thoughtfully, and a little gloomily. "She might go into the prison. But that would be to give warning that she had planned to escape. Besides, it is such a vile place, that I hate the idea of her passing a single night in one of its sickening cells." "Perhaps I can wring a pardon out of Sir William," said the lady musing. "Oh, Lady Mary, if you only could, we should both forever worship you!" The lady smiled at the young man's impassioned language and manner--he looked as if he would throw himself at her feet. "I should be too glad to do it. But Sir William just now is more rigid than ever. He had a call yesterday from his pastor, Master Cotton Mather, and a long talk from him about the witches. Master Mather, it seems, has had further evidence and of the most convincing character, of the reality of these spectral appearances." "Indeed!" said Master Raymond showing great interest for he had an idea of what was coming. "Yes, in a recent examination at Salem before Squire Hathorne, a young man struck with his sword at a spectral yellow bird which was tormenting an afflicted person; and several small yellow feathers were cut off by the thrust, and floated down to the floor. Squire Hathorne writes to Master Mather that he would not have believed it, if he had not seen it; but, as it was, he would be willing to take his oath before any Court in Christendom, that this wonderful thing really occurred." Master Raymond could not help laughing. "I see you have no more faith in the story than I have," continued Lady Mary. "But it had a great effect upon Sir William, coming from a man of such wonderful learning and wisdom as Master Cotton Mather. Especially as he said that he had seen the yellow feathers himself; which had since been sent to him by Squire Hathorne, and which had a singular smell of sulphur about them." The young man broke into a heartier laugh than before. Then he said scornfully, "It seems to me that no amount of learning, however great, can make a sensible man out of a fool." "Why, you know something about this then? Did it happen while you were in Salem?" "I know everything about it," said Master Raymond, "I am the very man that worked the miracle." And he proceeded to give Lady Mary a detailed account of the whole affair, substantially as it is known to the reader. "By the way, as to the feathers smelling of sulphur," concluded the young man, "I think that it is very probable, inasmuch as I observed the jailer's wife that very morning giving the younger chickens powdered brimstone to cure them of the pip." "I think you are a marvelously clever young man," was the lady's first remark as he concluded his account. "Thank your ladyship!" replied Master Raymond smiling. "I hope I shall always act so as to deserve such a good opinion." "I would have given my gold cup--which the Duke of Albemarle gave me--to have been there; especially when the yellow bird's feathers came floating down to Squire Hathorne's reverential amazement," said Lady Mary, laughing heartily. "You must come up here tomorrow morning at noon. Master Mather is to bring his feathers to show the Governor, and to astound the Governor's skeptical wife. You are not afraid to come, are you?" "I shall enjoy it very much--that is, if the Governor will promise that I shall not suffer for my disclosures. I am free now, and I do not wish to be arrested again." "Oh, I will see to that. The Governor will be so curious to hear your story, that he will promise all that you desire as to your safety. Besides, he will not be sorry to take down Master Mather a little; these Puritan ministers presume on their vocation too much. They all think they are perfectly capable of governing not only Provinces, but Kingdoms; while the whole history of the world proves their utter incapacity to govern even a village wisely." "That is true as the gospel, Lady Mary. But one thing I have always noticed. That while every minister thinks this, he would himself far rather be governed even by one of the world's people, than by a minister of any other belief than his own. So you see they really do think the same as we do about it; only they do not always know it." "You are a bright young man," Lady Mary replied pleasantly, "and I think almost good enough to wear such a sweet rose next your heart as Mistress Dulcibel." CHAPTER XLVIII. Captain Tolley's Propositions. That evening as Master Raymond was standing in the bar-room of the Red Lion, Captain Tolley came in, and after tossing off a stout glass of rum and water, went out again, giving the young Englishman a nod and the agreed-upon-signal, a smoothing of his black beard with the left hand. After the lapse of a few minutes, Master Raymond followed, going towards the wharves, which in the evening were almost deserted. Arrived at the end of one of the wharves, he found the Captain of the Storm King. "So you got out of the clutches of those Salem rascals safely?" said the Captain. "I was afraid I should have to go all the way to Salem for you." "You would not have deserted me then, Captain?" "That is not the kind of a marlinespike I am," replied the Captain quaintly. "I'd have got you out of Salem jail, unless it is a good deal stronger than the Boston one." "Thank you, Captain, but I am glad there was no need of your trying." "You heard of course that Captain Alden was off, and Master and Mistress English?" "Yes--and very glad I was too." "Why did not your sweetheart go with the Englishes?" "There were several reasons--one, a rather foolish one, she would not leave me in prison." "She would not?" "No." "D---- me! Why that girl is fit to be a sailor's wife! When we get her off safely I intend to have her as the figure-head of the Storm King." "I am afraid that would be a very unhealthy position--she might catch a bad cold," replied Master Raymond. "Oh, of course I mean in wood, painted white with red cheeks," said Captain Tolley. "It brings good luck to have a fine woman for a figure-head--pleases old Nep, you know." "But we must get her off first," rejoined Master Raymond. "Now to keep out of that hateful jail, she has given her word to Keeper Arnold not to escape. You know she cannot break her word." "Of course not," replied the Captain; "a lady is like a sailor, she cannot go back on her promise." "And there is where the trouble comes in." "Buy Keeper Arnold over." "I am afraid I cannot--not for a good while at least. They are all down upon him for Captain Alden's escape. They might give him a terrible whipping if another prisoner got off." The Captain shrugged his shoulders. "Yes, I saw them whip some Quakers once. It was not a good honest lash, but something the hangman had got up on purpose, and which cut to the very bone. I have seen men and women killed, down on the Spanish main, but I never saw a sight like that! Good, harmless men and women too! A little touched here, you know," and the Captain tapped his forehead lightly with his fore-finger. "Yes--I should not like to hear that Master Arnold had been tortured like that on our account." "Suppose we carry her off some night by force, she having no hand in the arrangements? She can even refuse to go, you know, if she pleases--we will handle her as gently as a little bird, and you can come up and rescue her, if you choose, and knock down two or three of us. How would that do? Half-a-dozen of the Storm King's men could easily do that. Choose a night with a brisk nor'wester, and we would be past the castle's guns before the sleepy land-lubbers had their eyes open." Master Raymond shook his head dubiously. "I do not like it--and yet I suppose it must do, if nothing better can be found. Of course if we carry her off bodily, against her will, it would neither be a breaking of her pledge nor expose Keeper Arnold to any danger of after punishment, though he might perhaps get pretty seriously hurt in resisting us, and she would not like that much." "I suppose then we must wait a while longer," said the Captain. "I am ready any time you say the word--only be careful that a good west or a nor'west wind is blowing. When once out on the high seas, we can take care of ourselves." "Many French privateers out there?" "Thick as blackberries. But they are of no account. Those we cannot fight, we can easily run away from. There is no craft on these seas, that can overhaul the Storm King!" With a hearty shake of the hand the two parted, the Captain for the vessel of which he was so proud; Master Raymond for his room in the Red Lion. CHAPTER XLIX. Master Raymond Confounds Master Cotton Mather. The next day, a little before noon, Master Raymond knocked at the door of the Governor's Mansion, and was at once conducted to Lady Mary's boudoir. "The Reverend Master Mather is already with the Governor," said her ladyship, "and I expect to receive a summons to join them every moment." And in fact the words were hardly out of her mouth, when Sir William's private secretary, Master Josslyn, appeared, with a request for her ladyship's presence. "Come with me," said she to Master Raymond; "but do not say anything--much less smile or laugh--until I call upon you for your testimony." As they entered, the courteous Governor handed his lady to a seat on the sofa; and Master Mather made a dignified obeisance. "I have brought along a young friend of mine, who was with me, and would also like to hear of all these wonderful things," said her ladyship; and Master Raymond bowed very deferentially to both the high dignities, they returning the bow, while Sir William politely requested him to be seated. "I was just on the point of showing to Sir William the most remarkable curiosities of even this very remarkable era--and he suggested that you also doubtless would like to see them," said the minister; at this time a man of about thirty years of age. He was a rather comely and intelligent looking man, and Master Raymond wondered that one who appeared so intellectual, should be the victim of such absurd hallucinations. Lady Mary bent her head approvingly, in answer to the minister. "I should like very much to see them," she replied courteously; and Master Mather continued:-- "In the work I have been preparing on the "Wonders of the Invisible World," several of the sheets of which I have already shown to Sir William, I have collected many curious and wonderful instances. Thus in the case of the eldest daughter of Master John Goodwin, whom I took to my own house, in order that I might more thoroughly investigate the spiritual and physical phenomena of witchcraft, I found that while the devils that tormented her were familiar with Latin, Greek and Hebrew, they seemed to have very little knowledge of the various Indian dialects." "That certainly is very curious," replied Sir William, "inasmuch as those heathen are undeniably the children of the devil, as all our wisest and most godly ministers agree." "Yes," continued the minister, "it is true; and that makes me conjecture, that these devils were in fact only playing a part; to deceive me into thinking that the red heathen around us were not really the children of Satan, as they undoubtedly are." "I think that the most reasonable view," responded the Governor. "As to the reality of this new assault by Satan upon this little seed of God's people in the new world," continued Master Mather, fervently, "I have now no doubt whatever. Proof has been multiplied upon proof, and the man, or woman, who does not by this time believe, is simply one of those deplorable doubters, like Thomas, who never can be convinced. For my part, I consider Witchcraft the most nefandous high treason against the Majesty on High! And a principal design of my book is to manifest its hideous enormity, and to promote a pious thankfulness to God that Justice so far is being inflexibly executed among us." Lady Mary's face flushed a little, for she saw the drift of the minister's censure. It was well known in all the inner circles, that she had neither faith in the reality of witchcraft, nor the least sympathy with the numerous prosecutions, and the inflexible justice which the minister lauded. The Governor knew his wife's temper, and hastened to say:-- "Still we must admit, Master Mather, that some persons, with tender conscience, require more convincing proofs than do others. And therefore I was anxious that Lady Mary should see these feathers you spoke of, cut from the wings of one of those yellow birds which appear to be used so frequently as familiars by the Salem witches." "Oh, yes, I had forgotten them for the moment." And putting his hand into his breast pocket, Master Mather produced a small box, which he opened carefully and called their attention to a couple of small yellow feathers placed on a piece of black cloth within. "I would not take a hundred pounds for these spectral feathers," said the minister exultingly. "They are the only positive proof of the kind, now existing in the whole world. With these little feathers I shall dash out the brains of a host of unbelievers--especially of that silly Calef, or Caitiff, who is all the time going around among the merchants, wagging his vile tongue against me." Sir William and Lady Mary had been looking upon the feathers very curiously. At last Lady Mary gave a low, incredulous laugh. Her husband looked at her inquiringly. "They are nothing but common chicken feathers which could be picked up in any barn yard," she said scornfully. "Your ladyship is very much mistaken, you never saw chicken feathers like those," said the minister, his face now also flushing. "Who was the yellow bird afflicting, when these feathers were cut?" the lady asked. "A young man was on his examination for witchcraft, Squire Hathorne writes me; but he was found to be himself a victim, and was released--which proves, by the way, how careful the worshipful magistrates are in Salem, lest any who are innocent should be implicated with the guilty. The young man began to cry out that an 'evil hand' was on him, and that a yellow bird was trying to peck out his eyes. Whereupon one of the by-standers pulled out his rapier, and smote at the spectral bird--when these feathers were cut off; becoming visible of course as soon as they were detached from the bird and its evil influence. It is one of the most wonderful things that I ever heard of," and Master Mather gazed on the feathers with admiring and almost reverential eyes. "Sir William," said his lady, "you have, I hope, a little common sense left, if these Massachusetts ministers and magistrates have all gone crazy on this subject. You know what a chicken is, if they do not. Are not those simply chicken feathers?" "Why, my dear," replied the Governor, wriggling in his great arm-chair, "I grant that they certainly do look like chicken feathers; but then you know, the yellow bird the witches use, may have feathers like unto a chicken's." "Nonsense!" replied Lady Mary. "None are so blind as those that will not see. I suppose that if I were to bring that afflicted young man here, and he were to acknowledge that the whole thing was a trick, got up by him to save his life, you would not believe him?" "Indeed I should," replied Sir William. "Yes, Lady Mary, find the young man, and question him yourself," said Master Mather. "None are so certain as those that have never informed themselves. I have made inquiry into these marvelous things; I even took that afflicted girl, as I have told you, into my own house, in order to inform myself of the truth. When you have investigated the matter to one-tenth the extent that I have, you will be prepared to give a reasonable opinion as to its truth or falsehood. Until then, some modesty of statement would become a lady who sets up her crude opinion against all the ministers and the magistracy of the land." This was a tone which the leading ministers of that day among the Puritans, did not hesitate to take, even where high dignitaries were concerned and Master Mather had the highest ideas of the privilege of his order. "Then I suppose, Master Mather, that if the afflicted young man himself should testify that these feathers were simply chicken feathers, that he had artfully thrown up into the air, you would not acknowledge that he had deceived you?" "If such an impossible thing could happen, though I know that it could not, of course I should be compelled to admit that Squire Hathorne and a hundred others, who all saw this marvelous thing plainly, in open day, were deceived by the trick of an unprincipled mountebank and juggler." "I shall hold both you and Sir William to your word," replied Lady Mary emphatically. Then, turning to the young Englishman, who had remained entirely silent so far, paying evident attention to all that was spoken, but giving no sign of approval or disapproval, she said, "Master Raymond, what do you think of this matter?" Master Raymond rose from his chair and stepped a pace or two forward. Then he said, "If I answer your ladyship's question freely, it might be to my own hurt. Having had my head once in the lion's mouth, I am not anxious to put it there again." The lady looked significantly at Sir William. "Speak out truly, and fear nothing, young man," said the Governor. "Nothing that you say here shall ever work you injury while I am Governor of the Province." "What do you wish to know, Lady Mary?" "You, I believe, were the afflicted young man, to whom Master Mather has referred?" Master Raymond bowed. "Was there any reality in those pretended afflictions?" "Only a bad cold to begin with," said the young man smiling. "How about the yellow bird?" "It was all a sham. I dealt with credulous and dangerous fools according to their folly." "How about those feathers?" "They are feathers I got from the wings of one of the Salem jailor's chickens." Sir William laughed, "How about the smell of sulphur which Squire Hathorne and Master Mather have detected in the feathers?" "I think it very probable; as I observed Goodwife Foster that morning giving her chickens powdered brimstone for the pip." Here the Governor laughed loudly and long until Master Mather said indignantly, "I am sorry, Sir William, that you can treat so lightly this infamous confession of falsehood and villainy. This impudent young man deserves to be set for three days in the pillory, and then whipped at the cart's tail out of town." "Of course it is a very shameful piece of business," replied the Governor, regaining his gravity. "But you know that as the confession has been made only on the promise of perfect immunity, I cannot, as a man of my word, suffer the least harm to come to the young person for making it." "Oh, of course not," said the minister, taking up his hat, and preparing to leave the room; "but it is scandalous! scandalous! All respect for the Magistracy and authority seems to be fading out of the popular mind. I consider you a dangerous man, a very dangerous young man!" This last of course to Master Raymond. "And I consider you tenfold more dangerous with your clerical influence, and credulity, and superstition!" replied the young Englishman hotly. Being of good family, he was not inclined to take such insults mildly. "How dare you, with your hands all red with the blood of twenty innocent men and women, talk to me about being dangerous!" "Peace!" said Sir William with dignity. "My audience chamber is no place to quarrel in. "I beg your Excellency's pardon!" said Master Raymond, humbly. "One moment, before you go," said Lady Mary, stepping in front of the minister. "I suppose you will be as good as your word, Master Mather and admit that with all your wisdom you were entirely mistaken?" "I acknowledge that Squire Hathorne and myself have been grossly deceived by an unprincipled adventurer--but that proves nothing. Because Jannes and Jambres imitated with their sorceries the miracles of Moses, did it prove that Moses was an impostor? There was one Judas among the twelve apostles, but does that invalidate the credibility of the eleven others, who were not liars and cheats? It is the great and overwhelming burden of the testimony which decides in this as in all other disputed matters--not mere isolated cases. Good afternoon, madam. I will see you soon again, Sir William, when we can have a quiet talk to ourselves." "Stay!" cried Lady Mary, as the offended minister was stalking out of the room. "You have forgotten something," and she pointed to the little box, containing the chicken's feathers which had been left lying upon the table. The minister gave a gesture expressive of mingled contempt and indignation--but did not come back for it. It was evident that he valued the feathers now at considerably less than one hundred pounds. "Young man," said the Governor, smiling, "you are a very bright and keen-witted person, but I would advise you not to linger in this province any longer than is absolutely necessary. Master Mather is much stronger here than I am." CHAPTER L. Bringing Affairs to a Crisis. The next morning a note came to Master Raymond from Joseph Putnam, brought by one of the farm-hands. It was important. Abigail Williams had called upon Goodwife Buckley, and told her in confidence that it was in contemplation, as she had learned from Ann Putnam, to bring Dulcibel Burton back to Salem jail again. The escape of Captain Alden and the Englishes from the Bridewell in Boston, had caused a doubt in Salem as to its security. Besides, Lady Phips had taken ground so openly against the witch prosecutions, that there was no knowing to how great an extent she might not go to aid any prisoner in whom she took an interest. Abigail Williams further said that Mistress Ann Putnam had become very bitter both against her brother-in-law Joseph and his friend Master Raymond. She was busy combatting the idea that the latter really ever had been afflicted--and was endeavoring to rouse Squire Hathorne's indignation against him as being a deceiver. As the young man read this last, he wondered what effect would be produced upon the credulous magistrate, when he received word from Master Mather as to what had occurred in the Governor's presence. Would he be so angry as to take very arbitrary measures; or so ashamed as to let it all pass, rather than expose the extent to which he had been duped? He feared the former--knowing in which way Mistress Ann Putnam's great influence with him would be directed. Master Joseph advised immediate action--if peaceable means would not serve, then the use of violent ones. If Captain Tolley could not find among his sailors those who would undertake the job, he, Master Joseph, would come down any night with three stout men, overpower the keepers, and carry off Mistress Dulcibel, with the requisite amount of violence to keep her promise unbroken. Master Raymond wrote a note in return. He was much obliged for the information. It was evident that the time had come for action; and that it was dangerous to delay much longer. Of course peaceable means were to be preferred; and it was possible he might be able either to bribe the keeper, or to get a release from the Governor; but, if force had to be resorted to, Captain Tolley could command his whole crew for such a service, as they were the kind of men who would like nothing better. In fact, they would not hesitate to open fire upon the town, if he ordered it--and even run up the flag of a French privateer. After dispatching this business, Master Raymond went out on the porch of the Red Lion, and began an examination of the clouds and the weather-cocks. It had been raining slightly for a day or two, with the wind from the southeast; but though the vanes still pointed to the southeast, and the light lower clouds were moving from the same point of the compass, he caught glimpses through the scud of higher clouds that were moving in an entirely opposite direction. "How do you make it out?" said a well-known voice. He had heard some one approaching, but had supposed it to be a stranger. "I am not much of a sailor; but I should say it would clear up, with a brisk wind from the west or the northwest by afternoon." "Aye!" said Captain Tolley, for it was he; "and a stiff nor'wester by night. If it isn't I'll give my head for a foot-ball. Were I bound out of the harbor, I would not whistle for a better wind than we shall have before six hours are over." Master Raymond glanced around; no one was near them. "Are you certain of that, Captain? Would it do to bet upon? "You may bet all you are worth, and your sweetheart into the bargain," replied the Captain laughing, with a significant look out of his eyes. "When are you going, Captain?" "Oh, to-night, perhaps--if I can get all my live stock on board. "To-night then let it be," said the young man in a whisper; "by fair means, or by foul. I may succeed by fair means; have a boat waiting at the wharf for me. It will be light enough to get out of the harbor?" "There is a gibbous moon--plenty. Once past the castle, and we are safe. We can easily break open the keeper's house--and quiet him with a pistol at his head." "You must not harm him--he has been a good friend to her." "Of course--only scare him a little. Besides, he is not a good friend, if he makes a noise." "Well, I will see you by ten o'clock--with her or without her--Yes, I will bet you a gold piece, Captain, that the wind gets around to the west by four o'clock." This last was in Master Raymond's usual tones--the previous conversation having been in whispers. "You will be safe enough in that, Master Raymond," said the landlord of the Red Lion, whose steps the young Englishman had heard approaching. "Do you think so? I do not want to take the young man's money, he is only a landsman you know, Mate; but I will bet you a piece of eight that the wind will not get around till a half hour after that time. And we will take it all out in drinks at your bar, at our leisure." "Done!" said the landlord. "And now let us go in, and take a drink all around in advance." CHAPTER LI. Lady Mary's Coup D'Etat. Master Raymond's next proceeding was to call on Lady Phips. Sending in his name, with a request to see her ladyship on very important business, he was ushered as usual into her boudoir. "I must be doing something, Lady Mary," he said, after a few words relative to the evident change of weather; "I have news from Salem that the Magistrates are about to send Mistress Dulcibel back to Salem jail." "That is sad," she answered. "And, besides, there is no knowing what new proceedings they may be concocting against me. I must take Sir William's advice, and get out of this hornet's nest as soon as possible." "Well what can I do for you?" "Get an order from Sir William releasing Dulcibel from prison." "Oh, that I could! God knows how gladly I would do it." "You can at least try," said Master Raymond desperately. The lady hesitated a moment. "Yes, as you say, I can at least try. But you know how impossible it is to carry on the government of this Province without the support of the ministers and the magistrates. Sir William is naturally anxious to succeed; for, if he fails here, it will block his road to further preferment." "And he will allow the shedding of innocent blood to go on, in order to promote his own selfish ambition?" said the young man indignantly. "You are unjust to the Governor. He will do all he can to moderate this fanaticism; and, if it comes to the worst, he will order a general jail-delivery, and meet the consequences. But he hopes much from time, and from such developments as those of your chicken feathers"--and the lady smiled at the thought of the minister's discomfiture. "Some things can wait, but I cannot wait," insisted Master Raymond. "You must acknowledge that." "Sir William starts this afternoon on a visit to Plymouth, to remain for a day or so; but I will have a talk with him, and see what I can do," replied the lady. "Call here again at six o'clock this evening." "Such beauty and spirit as yours must be irresistible in the cause of virtue and innocence," said the young man, rising to depart. "No flattery, Master Raymond; I will do all I can without that;" but Lady Mary being still a very comely woman, as she certainly was a very spirited one, was not much displeased at the compliment, coming from such a handsome young man as Master Raymond. Eulogy that the hearer hopes embodies but the simple truth, is always pleasant alike to men and women. It is falsehood, and not truth, that constitutes the essence of Flattery. The day dragged on very drearily and slowly to Master Raymond. The waiting for the hour of action is so irksome, that even the approach of danger is a relief. But patience will at last weary out the slowest hours; and punctually at six o'clock, the young man stood again at the door of the Governor's mansion. Lady Mary evidently was expecting him--for he was shown in at once. She looked up wearily as he entered. "I can do nothing to-day," she said. "What ground did the Governor take?" "That sound policy forbade him to move in the matter at present. The persecuting party were very indignant at the escape of Captain Alden and the Englishes; and now for him to grant a pardon to another of the accused, would be to irritate them to madness." Master Raymond acknowledged to himself the soundness of the Governor's policy; but he only said: "Then it seems that Dulcibel must go back to Salem prison; and I run a good chance of going to prison also, as a self-confessed deceiver and impostor." "If she were released, could you both get away from Boston--at once?" Master Raymond's voice sank to a whisper. "I have all my plans arranged. By the third hour after midnight, we shall be where we can snap our fingers at the magistrates of Boston." "I have been thinking of a plan. It may work--or may not. But it is worth trying." The young man's face lightened. "You know that England is ruled by William and Mary, why should not the Province of Massachusetts also be?" "I do not understand you." "Upon leaving Sir William, I was somewhat indignant that he would not grant my request. And to pacify me, he said he was sorry that I had not the same share in the government here, that Queen Mary had at home--and then I could do more as I pleased." Still Master Raymond's face showed that he was puzzled to catch her meaning. She laughed and rose from her chair; the old, resolute expression upon her spirited face, and, opening the door into the next room, which was the Governor's private office, she said: "Come here a moment, Master Josslyn." The private Secretary entered. "Prepare me," she said to the Secretary, "the proper paper, to be signed by the Governor, ordering Keeper Arnold to release at once Mistress Dulcibel Burton from confinement in the Boston Bridewell." "But the Governor, you know, is absent, Lady Mary," said the Secretary, "and his signature will be necessary." "Oh, I will see to that," replied the lady a little haughtily. Master Raymond sat quietly--waiting for what was to come next. He could not conceive how Lady Mary intended to manage it. As for the lady, she tapped the table with her shapely fingers impatiently. In a few minutes Master Josslyn reappeared with the paper. "All it now wants is the signature of the Governor," said he. The lady took up a pen from the table by which she was sitting, and filled it with ink; then with a firm hand she signed the paper, "William Phips, Governor, by Lady Mary Phips." "But, your ladyship, the keeper will not acknowledge the validity of that signature, or obey it," said Master Josslyn in some alarm. "He will not? We shall see!" responded her ladyship rising. "Order my carriage, Master Josslyn." In fifteen minutes, Lady Mary, accompanied by Master Raymond, was at Keeper Arnold's house. "I bring you good news, Master Arnold," said Lady Mary, "I know you will rejoice, such a tender-hearted man as you are at the release of Mistress Dulcibel Burton. Here is the official document." She flourished it at him, but still kept it in her hand. Dulcibel was soon informed of the good news; and came flying out to meet her benefactor and her lover. "Put on a shawl and your veil at once; and make a bundle of your belongings," said Lady Mary, kissing her. "Master Raymond is in a great hurry to carry you off--at which I confess that I do not wonder." Dulcibel tripped off--the sooner she was out of that close place the better. "Well, what is it, Master Arnold?" said Lady Mary to the keeper, who acted as if he wished to say something. "It is only a form, my lady; but you have not shown me the Governor's warrant yet?" "Why, yes I have," said Lady Mary, fluttering it at him as before. But Keeper Arnold was fully aware of the responsibility of his position; and putting out his hand, he steadied the fluttering paper sufficiently to glance over its contents. When he came to the signature, his face paled. "Pardon me, my lady; but this is not the Governor's writing." "Of course it is not--why, you silly loon, how could it be when he has gone to Plymouth? But you will perceive that it is in Master Josslyn's writing--and the Governor ought to have signed it before he started." "This is hardly in regular form, my lady." "It is not? Do you not see the Governor's name; and there below it is my name, as proof of the Governor's. Do you mean to impeach my attestation of Sir William's signature? There is my name, Lady Mary Phips: and I will take the responsibility of this paper being a legal one. If anybody finds fault with you, send him to me; and I will say you did it, in the Governor's absence from town, at my peremptory order." The lady's face glowed, and her eyes flashed, with her excitement and determination. "It would be as much as my position is worth to disobey it and me!" rejoined Lady Mary. "I will have you out of this place in three days' time, if you cast disrespect upon my written name." "There can be no great haste in this matter. Bring the release tomorrow, and I will consult authority in the meanwhile," said the keeper pleadingly. "Authority? The Governor's name is authority! I am authority! Who dare you set up beside us? You forget your proper respect and duty, Master Arnold." The keeper was overborne at last. "You will uphold me, if I do this thing, Lady Mary?" said he imploringly. "You know me, Master Arnold--and that I never desert my friends! I shall accept the full responsibility of this deed before Sir William and the magistrates. And they cannot order any punishment which he cannot pardon." By this time it had grown quite dark. "Shall I take you anywhere in my carriage?" said Lady Mary, as Dulcibel reappeared with a bundle. "It is not necessary," replied Master Raymond joyfully, "I will not compromise you any further. God forever bless your ladyship! There is not another woman in New England with the spirit and courage to do what you have done this day--and the reader of our history a hundred years to come, as he reads this page, shall cry fervently, God bless the fearless and generous soul of Lady Mary!" "Let me know when you are safe," she whispered to the young man, as he stood by her carriage. "Master and Mistress English are now the guests of Governor Fletcher of New York--changing a Boston prison for a Governor's mansion. You will be perfectly secure in that Province--or in Pennsylvania, or Maryland or Virginia." And the carriage drove off. It was in that early hour of the evening, when the streets in town and city, are more deserted than they are for some hours afterwards; everyone being indoors, and not come out for visiting or amusement. And so the young man and his companion walked towards the north-eastern part of the town, meeting only one or two persons, who took no special notice of them. "You do not ask where we are going, Dulcibel?" at last said Master Raymond. She could not see the sweet smile on his face; but she could feel it in his voice. "Anywhere, with you!" the maiden replied in a low tone. "We are going to be married." He felt the pressure of her hand upon his arm in response. "That is, if we can find a minister to perform the ceremony." "That will be difficult, I should think." "Yes, difficult, but not impossible. After getting you out of prison, as Lady Mary did, I should not like to call anything impossible." "Lady Mary is an angel!" "Yes, one of the kind with wings," replied her companion laughing. "She has kindly loaned us her wings though--and we are flying away on them." Before long they were at one of the wharves; then on a small boat--then on the deck of the "Storm King." "I am better than my word, Captain Tolley." "Aye! indeed you are. And this is the birdie! Fair Mistress, the "Storm King" and his brood are ready to die to shield you from harm." Dulcibel looked wonder out of her clear blue eyes. What did it all mean? She smiled at the Captain's devoted speech. "I do not want any one to die for me, Captain. I would rather have you sing me a good sea-song, such as my father, who was also a sea-captain, used to delight me with at home." "Oh, we can do that too," answered the Captain gaily. "I hope we shall have a jolly time of it, before we reach our destination. Now, come down into the cabin and see the preparations I have made for you; a sailor's daughter must have the best of sailor's cheer." "One word, Captain," said Master Raymond, as the Captain came up on deck again, leaving Dulcibel to the privacy of her state-room. "It does not seem fitting that a young unmarried woman should be alone on a vessel like this, with no matron to bear her company." "Sir!" said the Captain, "I would have you know that the maiden is as safe from aught that could offend her modesty on the decks of the "Storm King," as if she were in her father's house." "Of course she is. I know that well--and mean not the least offense. And she, innocent as she is, has no other thought. But this is a slanderous world, Captain, and we men who know the world, must think for her." "Oh, I admit that," said Captain Tolley, somewhat mollified, "we cannot expect of mere land's people, who put an innocent girl like that into prison for no offense, the gentle behavior towards women that comes naturally from a seaman; but what do you propose?" "To send for one of the Boston ministers, and marry her before we leave port." "Why, of course," replied the Captain. "It is the very thing. Whom shall we send for? The North Church is nearest--how would Master Cotton Mather do?" The young man stood thoughtfully silent for a moment or two. The ministers of South Church and of King's chapel were more heterodox in all this witchcraft business; but for that very reason he did not wish to compromise them in any way. Besides, he owed a grudge to Master Mather, for his general course in sustaining the persecution, and his recent language in particular towards himself. So his lips gradually settled into a stern determination, and he replied "Master Mather is the very man." "It may require a little ingenuity to get him aboard at this time of the evening," said the Captain. "But I reckon my first mate, Simmons, can do it, if any one can." "Here, Simmons," to the first mate, who was standing near, "you look like a pillar of the church, go ashore and bring off Master Cotton Mather with you. A wealthy young Englishman is dying--and he cannot pass away from Boston in peace without his ministerial services." "Dying?" ejaculated Master Raymond. "Yes, dying! dying to get married--and you cannot pass out of Boston harbor in peace, without his ministerial services." "Would it not do as well to ask him to come and marry us?" "I doubt it," replied the Captain. "Master Mather is honest in his faith, even if he is bigoted and superstitious--and death cannot be put off like marriage till tomorrow. But take your own course, Simmons--only bring him." "Shall I use force, sir, if he will not come peaceably?" asked the mate coolly. "Not if it will make a disturbance," said his commander. "We do not want to run the gauntlet of the castle's guns as we go out of the harbor. The wind is hardly lively enough for that." "I will go down and tell Dulcibel," said Master Raymond. "It is rather sudden, but she is a maiden of great good sense, and will see clearly the necessity of the case. And as she is an orphan, she has no father or mother whose consent she might consider necessary. But Mate"--going to the side of the vessel, which the boat was just leaving, "not a word as to my name or that of the maiden. That would spoil all." "Aye, aye, sir! Trust me to bring him!" and the boat started for the shore, under the vigorous strokes of two oarsmen. CHAPTER LII. An Unwilling Parson. Not quite an hour had elapsed, when the sound of oars was again heard; and Captain Tolley, peering through the dark, saw that another form was seated opposite the mate in the stern-sheets of the boat. "I thought that Simmons would bring him," said Captain Tolley to the second mate; "such a smooth tongue as he has. It is a pity he wasn't a minister himself--his genius is half wasted here." "Glad to see you on board the Storm King, Master Mather," was the greeting of the Captain, as the minister was helped up to the deck by the mates. "The Storm King! Why I was told that it was an English frigate, just come into port," said the minister in a surprised voice. "The messenger must have made a mistake," replied the Captain coolly. "You know that landsmen always do get things mixed. "Well, as I am here, no matter. Show me the dying man." "Walk down into the cabin," said the Captain politely. Entering the cabin which was well lighted, Master Raymond stepped forward, "I am happy to see you, Master Mather. You remember me, do you not?" "Master Raymond, I believe," returned the minister coldly. "Where is the dying man who requires my spiritual ministrations?" "Dying!" laughed the Captain. "How strangely that fellow got things mixed. I said dying to get married--did I not, Master Raymond?" "Of course you did--that is, after you had explained yourself." Master Mather's face looked blank, he did not know what to make of it. "In truth, Master Mather," said the young Englishman, "I was under the necessity of getting married this evening; and, thinking over the worshipful ministers of Boston town, I singled you out as the one I should prefer to officiate on the happy occasion." "I decline to have anything to do with it," said Master Mather indignantly, turning on his heel, and going to the door of the cabin. But here a muscular sailor, with a boarding pike, promptly forbade his passage by putting the pike across the door way. "What do you mean by barring my way in this manner?" said the minister in great wrath to the captain. "Have you no reverence for the law?" "Not a particle for Boston law," replied Captain Tolley. "The only law recognized on board the Storm King is the command of its Captain. You have been brought here to marry these two young friends of mine; and you will not leave the vessel before you do it--if I have to take you with us all the way to China." Master Mather pondered the matter for a moment. "This is too informal, there are certain preliminaries that are necessary in such cases." "Advisable--but I am told not absolutely necessary," replied Master Raymond. "Wait then for an hour or two; and we shall be on the high seas--and out of any jurisdiction," added Captain Tolley. "Who is this maiden? Who gives her away?" asked the minister. "This maiden is Mistress Dulcibel Burton," said Master Raymond, taking her by the hand. "She is an orphan; but I give her away," added the Captain. "Dulcibel Burton! the serpent witch!" exclaimed Master Mather. "What is that convict doing here? Has she broken jail?" "Master Mather," said the Captain in an excited tone, "if you utter another word of insult against this innocent and beautiful maiden, I will have you flung overboard to the sharks! So take care of what you say!" and the indignant seaman shook his finger in the minister's face warningly. "Master Mather," added Raymond, more coolly, "Mistress Burton has not broken jail. She was duly released from custody by Keeper Arnold on the presentation of an official paper by Lady Mary Phips. Therefore your conscience need not be uneasy on that score." "Why are you here then--why making this haste? It is evident that there is something wrong about it." "Boston has not treated either of us so well that we are very desirous of remaining," replied Master Raymond. "And as we are going together, it is only decorous that we should get married. If you however refuse to marry us, we shall be compelled to take you with us--for the mere presence of such a respected minister will be sufficient to shield the maiden's name from all reckless calumniators." The second mate came to the door of the cabin. "Captain, there is a fine breeze blowing, it is a pity not to use it." "Make all ready, sir," replied the Captain. Then turning to the minister, "There is no particular hurry, Master Mather. You can take the night to think over it. To-morrow morning probably, if you come to your senses, we may be able to send you ashore somewhere, between here and the capes of the Delaware." "This is outrageous!" said Master Mather. "I will hold both of you accountable for it." "It is a bad time to threaten, when your head is in the lion's mouth, Master Mather," returned Captain Tolley fiercely. "No one knows but my own men that you ever came on board the 'Storm King.' How do you know that I am not Captain Kidd himself?" The minister's face grew pale. It was no disparagement to his manhood. Even Master Raymond's face grew very serious--for did even he know that this Captain Tolley might not be the renowned freebooter, of whose many acts of daring and violence the wide seas rang? "I would counsel you for your own good to do at once what you will have to do ultimately," said Master Raymond gravely. "I owe you no thanks for anything; but"--and the young man laughed as he turned to Dulcibel--"I never could trap even a fox without pitying the animal." Dulcibel went up to the minister, and put her hand upon his arm:--"Do I look so much like a witch?" she said in a playful tone. "We are told that Satan can enrobe himself like an angel of light," replied Master Mather severely. "I judge you by what I have heard of your cruel deeds." "As you judged the cruel yellow bird that turned out to be only a harmless little chicken," said Master Raymond sarcastically. "Enough of this folly. Will you marry us now--or not? If you will, you shall be put ashore unharmed. If you will not, you shall go along with us. Make up your mind at once, for we shall soon be out of Boston harbor." Master Mather had a strong will--and an equally strong won't--but the Philistines were, for this time, too much for him. That reference to Captain Kidd had frightened him badly. "Stand up--and I will marry you. Unscrupulous as you both are, it is better that you should be married by legal rites, than allowed to go your own way to destruction." And then--the important ceremony being duly gone through--he pronounced Master Ellis Raymond and Mistress Dulcibel Burton man and wife. The Captain being allowed by Master Raymond to take the first kiss, as acting in the place of the bride's father. "No, not a penny!" said the minister, closing his hand against the golden pieces that the groom held out to him. "All I ask is, that you comply with your promise--and put me on shore again as soon as possible." "Better take a drink of wine first," said the Captain, filling up a glass and handing it to him. "I will neither break bread nor drink wine on this"--he was going to say _accursed_ ship; but the fierce eyes of the possible freebooter were upon him, and he said, "on this unhappy vessel." Captain Tolley laughed heartily. "Oh well, good wine never goes begging. The anchor is not up yet, and we will put you off just where you came on. Come along!" Without a word of leave-taking to the two whom he had joined together, Master Mather followed the Captain. In fact though, Master Raymond and Dulcibel scarcely noted his going, for they were now seated on a small sofa, the arm of the young husband around the shapely waist of his newly-made wife, and the minister dismissed from their minds as completely as the wine-glass out of which they had just drank. He had answered their purpose and in the deep bliss of their new relation, they thought no more about him. As Master Mather turned to descend to the boat again--not wasting any formal words of leave-taking upon the Captain either--the latter grasped him by the arm. "Wait one moment," said Captain Tolley. "You will speak of what has occurred here this evening Master Mather, or not, at your pleasure. But be careful of what you say--for there is no power on this coast, strong enough to protect you against my vengeance!" And with a scowl upon his face, that would not have done injustice to the dreaded Captain Kidd himself, he added in a hoarse, fierce tone the one impressive word "Beware!" The minister made no reply. It was a day of fierce men and wild deeds--especially on the high seas. Prudence in some positions is far better than valor. "Now, my hearties! let us get out of this harbor as soon as possible!" cried the Captain. "I might have held him till we were opposite the castle, and put him ashore there; but it is safer as it is. We have a regular clearance, and he cannot do anything legally under an hour or two at least--while in half-an-hour we shall be outside. With a stiff breeze like this, once on the open seas, I fear neither man nor devil!" CHAPTER LIII. The Wedding Trip and Where Then. Whether Master Mather did make any serious effort to prevent the "Storm King" from leaving the harbor, I am unable to say; but as I find no reference to this affair either in his biography or his numerous works, I am inclined to think that like a wise man, he held his peace as to what had occurred, and resolved never to go on board another vessel after nightfall. Certainly no cannon ball cut the waves as the "Storm King" sailed swiftly past the castle, and no signal was displayed signifying that she must come at once to anchor. And the little trip to New York was as pleasant in all respects as a young couple on a bridal tour could desire--even if the mere relief from the anxieties and threatened dangers of the previous long months had not been of itself a cause of happiness. Arrived at New York, Master Philip English and his wife received them with open arms. Master Raymond had brought letters from England to Governor Fletcher and others, and soon made warm friends among the very best people. There was no sympathy whatever in New York at that time with the witchcraft persecutions in Massachusetts; and all fugitives were received, as in the case of the Englishes, with great sympathy and kindness. Much to my regret, at this point, the old manuscript book to which I have been so largely indebted, suddenly closes its record of the fortunes of Master and Mistress Raymond. Whether they went to England, and took up their residence there among Master Raymond's friends, or found a home in this new world, I am therefore not able with absolute certainty to say. From what I have been able, however, to gather from other quarters, I have come to the conclusion that they were so much pleased with their reception in New York, that Master Raymond purchased an estate on the east side of the Hudson River, where he and the charming Dulcibel lived and loved to a good old age, leaving three sons and three daughters. If this couple really were our hero and heroine, then the Raymonds became connected, through the three daughters, with the Smiths, the Joneses and the Browns. In one way, perhaps, the question might be set at rest, were it not too delicate a one for successful handling. There is little doubt that among the descendants of Mistress Dulcibel, on the female side, the birth-mark of the serpent, more or less distinct, will be found occasionally occurring, even now, at the lapse of almost two centuries. Therefore, if among the secret traditions of any of the families I have mentioned, there be one relative to this curious birth-mark, doubtless that would be sufficient proof that in their veins runs the rich blood of the charming Dulcibel Raymond. CHAPTER LIV. Some Concluding Remarks. Perhaps before I conclude I should state that the keeper of the Boston Bridewell, Master Arnold, was summarily dismissed for accepting the validity of the Governor's signature. But he did not take it very grievously to heart for Master Raymond, Captain Alden and others whom he had obliged saw him largely recompensed. Captain Alden, by the way, had fled for concealment to his relatives in Duxbury. Being asked when he appeared there, "Where he came from?" the old captain said "he was fleeing from the devil--who was still after him." However his relatives managed to keep him safely, until all danger was passed, both from the devil and from his imps. As for Lady Mary, the indignation of "the faithful" was hot against her--and finally against Sir William, who could not be made to see in it anything but a very good joke. "You know that Lady Mary will have her own way," he said to Master Mather. "Wives should be kept in due gospel subjection!" returned the minister. "Oh, yes, rejoined the Governor smiling; but I wish you had a wife like Lady Mary, and would try it on her! I think we should hear something breaking." But when Mistress Ann Putnam and others began "to cry out" against Lady Mary as a witch, the Governor waxed angry in his turn. "It is time to put a stop to all this," he said indignantly. "They will denounce me as a witch next." So he issued a general pardon and jail delivery--alike to the ten persons who were then under sentence of death, to those who had escaped from prison, and to the one hundred and fifty lying in different jails, and the two hundred others who had been denounced for prosecution. It was a fair blow, delivered at the very front and forehead of the cruel persecution and it did its good work, though it lost Sir William his position--sending him back to England to answer the charges of his enemies, and to die there soon afterwards in his forty-fifth year. When Chief-Justice Stoughton, engaged in fresh trials against the reputed witches, read the Governor's proclamation of Pardon, he was so indignant that he left his seat on the bench, and could not be prevailed upon to return to it. Neither could he, to the day of his death, be brought to see that he had done anything else than what was right in the whole matter. Not so the jury--which, several years after, confessed its great mistake, and publicly asked forgiveness. Nor Judge Sewall, who rose openly in church, and confessed his fault, and afterward kept one of the days of execution, with every returning year, sacred to repentance and prayer--seeing no person from sunrise to nightfall, mourning in the privacy of his own room the sin he had committed. Mistress Ann Putnam and her husband both died within the seven years, as Dulcibel in her moment of spiritual exaltation had predicted. Her daughter Ann lived to make a public confession, asking pardon of those whom she had (she said unintentionally) injured, and died at the age of thirty-five--her grave being one that nobody wanted their loved ones to lie next to. As for the majority of the "afflicted circle," they fell as the years went on into various evil ways--one authority describing them as "abandoned to open and shameless vice." Master Philip English, after the issue of the Governor's pardon, returned to Salem. Seventeen years afterwards, he was still trying to recover his property from the officials of the Province. Of £1500 seized, he never recovered more than £300; while his wife died in two years, at the age of forty-two, in consequence of the treatment to which she had been subjected. Master Joseph Putnam and his fair Elizabeth lived on in peace at the old place; taking into his service the Quaker Antipas upon his release from prison. The latter was always quiet and peaceful, save when any allusion was made to the witches. But he had easy service and good treatment; and was a great favorite with the children, especially with that image of his father, who afterwards became distinguished as the Major General Putnam of Revolutionary fame. As for the presents that had been promised to the "afflicted circle," they came to them duly, and from London too. And they were rich gifts also; but such a collection of odd and grotesque articles, certainly are not often got together. Master Raymond had commissioned an eccentric friend of his in London to purchase them, and send them on; acquainting him with the peculiar circumstances. There were yellow birds, and red dragons, and other fantastic animals, birds and beasts. But they came from London and the "circle" found them just suited to their peculiar tastes; and they always maintained, even in defiance of Mistress Ann, that Master Raymond was a lovely gentleman and an "afflicted" person himself. It will thus be seen that these Salem maidens were in their day truly esthetic--having that sympathetic fondness for unlovely and repulsive things, which is the unerring indication of a daughter of Lilith. * * * * * And now, in conclusion, some one may ask, "Did the Province of Massachusetts ever make any suitable atonement for the great wrongs her Courts of Injustice had committed?" I answer Never! Massachusetts has never made any, adequate atonement--no, not to this day! The General Assembly, eighteen years afterwards, did indeed pass an act reversing the convictions and attainders in all but six of the cases; and ordering the distribution of the paltry sum of £578 among the heirs of twenty-four persons, as a kind of compensation to the families of those who had suffered; but this was all--nothing, or next to nothing! Perhaps the day will some time come, when the cry of innocent blood from the rocky platform of Witch Hill, shall swell into sufficient volume to be heard across the chasm of two centuries. Then, on some high pedestal, where the world can see it, Massachusetts shall proclaim in enduring marble her penitence and ask a late forgiveness of the twenty innocent men and women whom she so terribly wronged. And as all around, and even the mariner far out at sea, shall behold the gleaming shaft, standing where stood the rude gallows of two centuries ago, they shall say with softening eyes and glowing cheeks: "It is never too late to right a great wrong; and Massachusetts now makes all the expiation that is possible to those whom her deluded forefathers dishonored and persecuted and slew!" _By the Author of Dulcibel_ PEMBERTON; OR, ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO "A well-told romance of old Philadelphia and its vicinity. The incidents of the story are interwoven with the struggle for independence. The book is intensely American in character and sentiment, and healthful in its stimulation of patriotism."--_New York Observer_. Cloth. 12mo. 400 pages. $1.50 THE JOHN C. 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39176	----	DELUSION; OR THE WITCH OF NEW ENGLAND. By Eliza Buckminster Lee "There is in man a HIGHER than love of happiness: he can do without happiness, and, instead thereof, find blessedness."--SARTOR. BOSTON: HILLIARD, GRAY, AND COMPANY. 1840. Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1839, BY HILLIARD, GRAY & CO. in the clerk's office of the district court of Massachusetts. PREFACE. The scenes and characters of this little tale are wholly fictitious. It will be found that the tragic interest that belongs to the history of the year 1692 has been very much softened in the following pages. The object of the author has not been to write a tale of witchcraft, but to show how circumstances may unfold the inward strength of a timid woman, so that she may at last be willing to die rather than yield to the delusion that would have preserved her life. If it is objected that the young and lovely are seldom accused of any witchcraft except that of bewitching hearts, we answer, that of those who were _actually_ accused, many were young; and those who maintained a firm integrity against the overwhelming power of the delusion of the period must have possessed an intellectual beauty which it would be vain to endeavor to portray. This imperfect effort is submitted with much diffidence, to the indulgence of the courteous reader. THE WITCH OF NEW ENGLAND. CHAPTER I. "Ay, call it holy ground, The soil where first they trod: They have left unstained what there they found,-- Freedom to worship God." New England scenery is said to be deficient in romantic and poetic associations. It is said that we have no ruins of ancient castles, frowning over our precipices; no time-worn abbeys and monasteries, mouldering away in neglected repose, in our valleys. It is true that the grand and beautiful places in our natural scenery are not marred by the monuments of an age of violence and wrong; and our silent valleys retain no remnant of the abodes of self-indulgent and superstitious devotion; but the descendant of the Pilgrims finds, in many of the fairest scenes of New England, some memento to carry back the imagination to those heroic and self-sacrificing ancestors. His soul is warmed and elevated when he remembers that devoted company, who were sustained amid hardship and every privation, on the trackless ocean, and in the mysterious and appalling solitudes of the forest, by a firm devotion to duty, and an all-pervading sense of the immediate presence of God. The faults of our ancestors were the faults of their age. It is not now understood--and how wide from it was the conviction then!--that _even_ toleration implies intoleration. Who is to judge what opinions are to be tolerated? He whom circumstance has invested at the moment with power? The scene I wish to describe was on the borders of one of the interior villages of New England,--a mountain village, embosomed in high hills, from which the winter torrents, as they met in the plain, united to form one of those clear, sparkling rivers, in whose beautiful mirror the surrounding hills were reflected. The stream, "winding at its own sweet will," enclosed a smooth meadow. At the extremity of the meadow, and shadowed by the mountain, nestled one of the poorest farm-houses, or cottages, of the time. It was black and old, apparently containing but two rooms and a garret. Attached to it were the common out-houses of the poorest farms: a shed for a cow, a covering for a cart, and a small barn were all. But the situation of this humble and lonely dwelling was one of surpassing beauty. The soft meadow in front was dotted with weeping elms and birches; the opposite and neighboring hills were covered to their summits with the richest wood, while openings here and there admitted glimpses of the distant country. A traveller coming upon this solitary spot, and seeing the blue smoke curling against the mountain side, would have rejoiced. There is something in the lonely farmhouse, surrounded with its little garden, and its homely implements of labor, that instantly touches our sympathy. There, we say, human hearts have experienced all the changes of life; they have loved and rejoiced, perhaps suffered and died. The interior consisted of only two rooms. In the ample chimney of that which served for the common room, was burning a bright flame of pine knots; for, although it was the middle of summer, the sun sank so early behind the hills, and the evenings were so chilly, that the warmth was necessary, and the light from the small window cheered the laborer returning late from his work. An old man sat by the chimney, evidently resting from the labors of the day. He was bent by time, but his brilliant eye and his flowing gray locks gave a certain refinement to his appearance, beyond that which his homely garments would warrant. A woman, apparently as aged as himself, sat by the little window, catching the last rays of evening, as they were reflected from her white cap and silvery hair. Before her was a table on which lay a large Bible. She had just placed her spectacles between the leaves, as she closed it and resumed her knitting. These two formed a picture full of the quiet repose of old age. But there was another in the room,--a youth, apparently less than twenty, kneeling before the flaming pine, over the leaves of a worn volume that absorbed him wholly. The ruddy flame imparted the glow of health to a countenance habitually pale. Over his dark, enthusiastic eye was spread a clear and noble brow, so smooth and polished that it seemed as if at seventy it would be as unwrinkled as at seventeen. His piercing eye had that depth of expression that indicates dark passions or religious melancholy. He was slender in form, and very tall; but a bend in the shoulders, produced by agricultural labor, or by weakness in the chest, impaired somewhat the symmetry of his form. They had been silent some moments. The young man closed his worn volume, an imperfect copy of Virgil, and walked several times, with hurried steps, across the little room. At length he stopped before the woman, and said, "Mother, let me see how much your frugal care has hoarded. Let me know all our wealth. Unless I can procure another book, I cannot be prepared for the approaching examination. If I cannot enter college the next term, I never can. I must give up all hope of ever being any thing but the drudge I am now, and of living and dying in this narrow nook of earth." "No, no, my son," answered the woman; "if my prayers are heard, you will be a light and a blessing to the church, though I may not live to see it." The young man sighed deeply, and, taking the key she gave him, he opened an old-fashioned chest, and, from a little cup of silver tied over with a piece of leather, he poured the contents into his hand. There were several crowns and shillings, and two or three pieces of gold. Apparently the examination was unsatisfactory, for he threw himself into a chair, and covered his face with his hands. The old woman rose after looking at him a few moments in silence, and laid her hand gently on his shoulder. "My son," she said, "where is the faith that sustained your ancestors when they left all their luxuries and splendor, their noble homes for conscience' sake. Yes, my son, your fathers were among the distinguished of England's sons, and they left all for God." "Mother," said he, "would that they had been hewers of wood and drawers of water. Then I should have been content with my lot. Mother, all your carefully hoarded treasure will not be enough to pay my first term in college. Without books, without friends, I must give up the hope of an education," and the large tears trickled between his fingers. "You forget," she said, "your good friend at C. who has lent you so many books. Why not apply to him again?" A deep blush flushed the young man's countenance, but he made no answer, and seemed to wish to change the subject. "It is almost evening," he said; "shall we not have prayers?" and, placing himself near the window to catch the last rays of departing daylight, he read one of the chapters from the Old Testament. The aged man, who had not spoken during the discussion, stood up and prayed with great fervency. His prayer was made up, indeed, by quotations from the Old Testament, and he used altogether the phraseology of the Scriptures. He prayed for the church in the wilderness, "that it might be bright as the sun, fair as the moon, beautiful as Tirzah, and terrible as an army with banners;" "that our own exertions to serve the church and our strivings after the Holy Spirit might not be like arrows in the air, traces in the sea, oil upon the polished marble, and water spilt upon the ground." He asked for no temporal blessing; all his petitions were in language highly figurative, and he closed with a prayer for his grandson, "that God would make him a polished shaft in the temple of the Lord, a bright and shining light in the candlestick of the church." When he had finished his prayer,--"My son," he said, "do not be cast down; you forget that the great Luther begged his bread. The servants of the church, in every age, have been poor and despised; even the Son of God," and he looked reverently upwards, "knew not where to lay his head. _You_ have only to labor. The peat at the bottom of the meadow is already dry; there is more than we shall need for winter fuel; take it, in the morning, to C----, and with the produce buy the book you need." "No," said the young man, "there are many repairs necessary to make you and my grandmother comfortable for the winter. I cannot rob you of more. I can borrow the book." He lighted his lamp, made from rushes dipped in the green wax of the bay bush, which affords a beautiful, but not brilliant flame, and went up a few steps to his chamber in the garret. The old woman gathered the ashes over the kindling coal, and, with her aged partner, retired to the bed-room opposite the narrow entrance. CHAPTER II. "Deep thought oft seemed to fix his infant eye; Silent when glad, affectionate, though shy: And now his look was most demurely sad, And now he laughed aloud, yet none knew why. The neighbors stared and sighed, yet blessed the lad; Some deemed him wondrous wise, and some believed him mad." Beattie. Our young student retired to his garret, a small room in the roof of the cottage, heated by the summer sun resting on its roof almost to the heat of a furnace. One small window looking towards the east admitted the evening breeze. In the remotest corner was a low and narrow pallet, by the side of which hung the indispensable articles of a man's apparel. A small table, covered with ink spots, and a solitary chair stood in the centre of the little apartment. A few deal shelves contained the odd and worn volumes of the student's library. A Greek Testament, several lexicons, half a volume of Horace, lay scattered on the table. Virgil was the book he had brought with him from the pine-knot torch, and it was the old Grecian, Homer that he was so anxious to possess. The uncarpeted floor was thickly strewn with sheets half written over, and torn manuscripts were scattered about. Wherever the floor was visible, the frequent ink spots indicated that it was not without mental agitation that these manuscripts had been produced. It was not to repose from the labors of the day that the young man entered his little chamber: to bodily labor must now succeed mental toil. He cast a wistful look towards his little pallet; he longed to rest his limbs, aching with the labor of the day; but no; his lamp was on the table, and, resolutely throwing off his coarse frock, he sat down to think and to write. Wearied by a long day of labor, the student in vain tried to collect his thoughts, to calm his weakened nerves. He rose and walked his chamber with rapid steps, the drops of heat and anguish resting on his brow. "Oh!" said he, "that I had been content to remain the clod, the toil-worn slave that I am!" Little do they know, who have leisure and wealth, and all the appurtenances of literary ease--the lolling study-chair, the convenient apartment, the brilliant light--how much those suffer who indulge in aspirations beyond their lowly fortune. The student sat down again to write. His hands were icy cold, while his eyes and brow were burning hot. He was engaged on a translation from the Greek. His efforts to collect and concentrate his thoughts on his work, exhausted as he was with toil, were vain and unavailing. At length he threw down his pen. "Oh God!" thought he, "is this madness? am I losing my memory, my mind?" Again he walked his little room, but with gentler steps; for he would not disturb his aged relatives, who slept beneath. "Have I deceived myself?" he said; "were all my aspirations only delusions, when, yet a boy, I followed the setting sun, and the rainbow hues of the evening clouds, with a full heart that could only find relief in tears?--when I believed myself destined to be other than a hewer of wood and a drawer of water, because I felt an immeasurable pity for my fellow-men, groping, as I did myself, under all the evils of ignorance and sin? Was it only vanity, when I hoped to rise above the clods of the earth, and aspired to have my lips, as Isaiah's, touched by a coal from the holy altar? Was it only impatience at my lot which destined me to inexorable poverty?" "Let me not despair of myself;" and he took from his table a manuscript of two or three sheets, and began to read it. As he went on, his dissatisfaction seemed to increase. With the sensitiveness and humility of true genius, when under the influence of despondency, every line seemed to him feeble or exaggerated; all the faults glared out in bold relief; while the real beauty of the composition escaped his jaded and toil-worn attention. "Oh Heaven!" he said, "I have deceived myself; I am no genius, able to rise above the lowliness of my station. The bitter cup of poverty is at my lips. I have not even the power to purchase a single book. Shall I go again to my good friend at C----? Shall I appear as a beggar, or a peasant, to beg the trifling pittance of a book?" A burning blush for a moment passed over his pale countenance. "Will they not say, and justly, 'Go back to your plough; it is your destiny and proper vocation to labor?'" He sat down on the side of his little pallet, and burst into tears. He wept long, and, as he wept, his mind became more calm. The short summer's night, in its progress, had bathed the earth in darkness, and cooled the heated roof of his little apartment. The night breeze, as it came in at his window, chilled him, and he rose to close it. As he looked from his little window, the dawn was just appearing in the east, and the planet Venus, shining with the soft light of a crescent moon, was full before him. "O beautiful star!" he thought, "the same that went before the sages of the East, and guided them to the manger of the Savior! I aspire only to be a teacher of the sublime wisdom of that humble manger. Let me but lift up my weak voice in his cause, and let all worldly ambition die within me. '---- Thou, O Spirit! who dost prefer, Before all temples, th' upright heart and pure,' I consecrate my powers to thee." The morning breeze, as it blew on his temples, refreshed him. The young birds began to make those faint twitterings beneath the downy breast of the mother, the first faint sound that breaks the mysterious silence of early dawn. He turned from the window; the rush-light was just expiring in its rude candlestick. He threw himself on his bed, and was soon lost in deep and dreamless slumbers. CHAPTER III. "I give thee to thy God,--the God that gave thee A well-spring of deep gladness to my heart! And, precious as thou art, And pure as dew of Hermon, He shall have thee! My own, my beautiful, my undefiled! And thou shalt be his child." While the student sleeps, we will make the reader acquainted with his short and simple annals. His maternal grandfather had been among the Puritan emigrants who sought the rock-bound coast of New England. He was a man of worth and property, had been educated at Oxford, and distinguished for classical learning and elegant pursuits. But at the call of conscience he left the luxurious halls of his fathers, the rank, and ancestral honors that would have descended to him, to share the hardships, privations, and sufferings of the meanest of his companions. He brought with him his wife and an only child, a daughter of twenty years. Like her mother, she had been carefully nurtured, and had lived in much luxury, although in the strict seclusion of the daughters of the Puritans. The wives and daughters of the Pilgrims have never been honored as they deserved to be. Except the Lady Arbella Johnson, is there a single name that has descended with pride and honor to their daughters, and been cherished as a Puritan saint? It is true they lived in an age when the maxim that a woman should consider it her highest praise to have nothing said about her was in full force; and when the remark of Coleridge would have been applauded, "That the perfection of a woman's character is to be _characterless_." But among the wives of the Pilgrims there were heroic women that endured silently every calamity. Mrs. Hemans says, with poetry and truth,-- "_There_ was woman's _fearless_ eye, Lit by her deep love's truth." But how many _fearful_ days and nights they must have passed, trembling with all a mother's timidity for their children, when they heard the savage cry, that spared neither the touching smile of infancy, nor the agonized prayer of woman! They had left the comforts, and even the luxuries, of their English homes,--the hourly attendance of servants, to meet the chilling skies of a shelterless wilderness. She whose foot had trodden the softest carpets, whose bed had been of down, who had been accustomed to those minute attentions that prevent the rose-leaf from being crumpled, must now labor with her own hands, endure the cold of the severest winter, and leave herself unsheltered; all she asked was to guard her infant children from suffering, and aid by her sympathy, her husband. It is indeed true, that the sentiment of love or religion has power to elevate above all physical suffering, and to ennoble all those homely cares and humble offices that are performed for the beloved object with a smile of patient endurance; and it asks, in return, but confidence and tenderness. The wife of Mr. Seymore soon sank under the hardships of the times, and the severity of the climate of New England. Her grave was made in the solitude of the overshadowing forest, and her daughter, who had brought with her a fine, hardy, English constitution, lived to console her widowed father. He died about five years after his wife, and then his daughter married an Englishman of small fortune, who had come over with his family: his father and mother, both advanced in life, had settled on the small farm we have attempted to describe. He built the cottage for his parents, and then, with his wife, the mother of our young friend Seymore, returned to England. She lived not long after her return. The religious enthusiasm of the time had taken possession of her mind, and, before her death, she dedicated this, her only child, to the service of the church, and requested her husband to send him to America, where poverty presented no insurmountable barrier to his success. His father, in sending him to America in his twelfth year, promised to advance something for his education; but unfortunate circumstances prevented, and the boy was left to make his own fortune under the roof of his grandparents. His disappointment was great to find his grandparents in so narrow circumstances, and himself condemned to so obscure a station. He had aspirations, as we have seen, beyond his humble circumstances. The few books he brought with him were his consolation. They were read, reread, and committed to memory; and then he longed for more. An accident, or what we term an accident--the instrument that Providence provides to shape our destiny--threw some light upon the gloom that seemed to have settled on his prospects. He met at C----, where he had gone on some business connected with his agricultural labors, the clergyman of the place. Mr. Grafton was interested by his fine intellectual expression, and pleased with the refined and intelligent remarks that seemed unsuited to his coarse laborer's frock and peasant's dress. He took him to his house, lent him the books that were necessary to prepare him for our young college, and promised his aid to have him placed on the list of those indigent scholars who were devoted to the church. From this time his industry and ambition were redoubled, and we have seen the poor aspirant for literary distinction striving to unite two things which must at last break down the body or the mind,--heavy daily labor, with severe mental toil at night. He was young and strong; his health did not immediately fail, and we must now leave him where thousands of our young men have been left, with aspirations and hopes beyond their humble fortunes. CHAPTER IV. "Ay, thou art welcome, heaven's delicious breath! When woods begin to wear the crimson leaf, And suns grow meek, and the meek suns grow brief, And the year smiles as it draws near its death: Wind of the sunny south, O, still delay!" BRYANT. It was the close of one of those mild days at the end of October, that we call the Indian summer, corresponding to the St. Martin summer of the eastern continent, although the latter is wanting in some of the essential elements of beauty that belong to ours. The sun was setting in veiled and softened light, while a transparent mist, like a silver gauze, was drawn over woods and hills and meadows. The gorgeous robe of autumn gave to the landscape an air of festivity and triumph, while the veil of mist, and the death-like silence, seemed as if happy nature had been arrested in a moment of joy, and turned into a mourner. The intense stillness pressed on the heart. No chirp of bird or hum of insect broke the deep silence. From time to time a leaf, "yellow and sere," loosened, as it were, by invisible fingers from the stem, lingered a second on its way, and fell noiselessly to the earth. In the deep distant wood, the sound of the ripe nuts as they fell, and, at long intervals, the shrill cry of the squirrel, came to the ear, and interrupted the revery of the solitary wanderer. The scene I would describe was bounded on one side by high rocks and the vast ocean, but sloping towards the land into soft and undulating beauty. A noble river was on one side, and on the promontory thus formed, were left some of the largest trees of the forest that covered the whole country when our fathers first arrived. Although so near the ocean, the scene had a character of tranquil sylvan beauty strangely contrasted with the ocean when agitated by storms. One of the largest villages of the time was on the opposite bank of the river; but, as there was no bridge, the place I would describe was almost as solitary as if man had never invaded it. The trees upon it were the largest growth of elm and oak, and seemed left to shelter a single dwelling, a house of moderate size, but which had much the appearance of neatness and comfort. A few rods from the house, and still nearer the headland, stood the plain New England meeting-house of that period,--square, barn-like, unpainted, solitary, but for the silent tenants of its grave-yard. A grass-grown path connected the church with the dwelling-house, and the overshadowing trees gave to the spot an air of protection and seclusion unknown to modern New England churches. At one of the windows of this modest dwelling, that looked towards the setting sun, which now bathed the whole scene in yellow light, was a young woman who might have seen seventeen summers. She was slightly but well formed, and, had it not been for her fresh and radiant health, she would have possessed that pensive, poetic expression that painters love. She was not indeed beautiful, but hers was one of those countenances in which we think we recall a thousand histories,--histories of the inward life of the soul,--not the struggles of the passions; for the dove seemed visibly to rest in the deep blue liquid eye, brooding on its own secret fancies. By the fire sat a gentleman whose countenance and gray hair showed that he was approaching the verge of threescore years and ten, and his black dress indicated his profession. His slippers and pipe presented a picture of repose from the labors and cares of the day; and, although it had been warm, a fire of logs burned in the large old-fashioned chimney. The furniture of the room, though plain, and humble, had been kept with so much care and neatness that it was seen at once that a feminine taste had presided there, and had cherished as sacred the relics of another age. The occupants of the room were father and daughter. A portrait over the fireplace, carefully guarded by a curtain, indicated that he was a widower, and that his child was motherless. They had both been silent for a long time. The young lady continued to watch with apparent interest some object from the window, and the old man to enjoy his pipe; but at last the night closed in, and the autumn mist, rising from the river, veiled the brilliancy of the stars. The daughter drew near the table, and seated herself by her father: her countenance was pensive, and a low sigh escaped her. Her father laid his hand tenderly on her head: "My poor child," he said, "I fear your life is too solitary; your young heart yearns for companions of your own age. True, we have few visitors suited to your age." Edith looked up with a smile on her lips, but there was a tear in her eye, called there by her father's tender manner. "And where," continued he, "is our young friend the student? It is long since he came to get another book. I fear he is timid and sensitive, and does not like that you should see his poor labor-swollen hands; but _that_ he should be proud of,--far more proud than if they were soft, like yours." Edith blushed slightly. "Father," she said, "I want no companion but you. Let me bring your slippers. Ah! I see Dinah has brought them while I have been gazing idly at the river. It shall not happen again. What book shall be our evening reading? Shall I take up Cicero again, or will you laugh at the Knight of the rueful Countenance." How soon is ingenuous nature veiled or denied by woman. Edith thus tried to efface the impression of her sigh and blush, by assuming a gayety of manner which was foreign to her usual demeanor, and which did not deceive her father. "We must go and find out our young friend," pursued her father. "He has much talent, and will surely distinguish himself, and he must not be suffered to languish in poverty and neglect. The first fine day, my daughter, we will ride over and visit him." Edith looked her gratitude, and the long autumn evening wore pleasantly on. It was at the time when slavery was common in New England. At the close of the evening, Paul and Dinah, both Africans, entered, and the usual family prayers were offered. At the close of the prayer, the blacks kneeled down for their master's blessing. This singular custom, though not common to the times, was sometimes practised; and those Puritans, who would not bend the knee to God except in their closets, allowed their slaves to kneel for their own blessing. They went to Edith, who kissed Dinah on both dark cheeks, and gave her hand to Paul, and the family group separated each to his slumbers for the night. The head of the little group we have thus described was one of the most distinguished of the early New England clergymen. He had been educated in England, and was an excellent classical scholar; indeed, his passion for the classics was his only consolation in the obscure little parish where he was content to dwell. He had been early left a widower, with this only child, and all the affections of a tender heart had centred in her. The mildness of his disposition had never permitted him to become either a bigot nor a persecutor. He had been all his life a diligent student of the human heart, and the result was tolerance for human inconsistencies, and indulgence for human frailties. At this time accomplishments were unknown except to those women who were educated in the mother country; but such education as he could give his daughter had been one of his first cares. He had taught her to read his favorite classics, and had left the mysteries of "shaping and hemming," knitting and domestic erudition, to the faithful slave Dinah. Edith had grown up, indeed, without other female influence, relying on her father's instructions, as far as they went, and her own pure instincts, to guide her. The solitude of her situation had given to her character a pensive thoughtfulness not natural to her age or disposition. Solitude is said to be the nurse of genius, but to ripen it, at least with woman, the sunny atmosphere of love is necessary. Genius is less of the head than of the heart: not that we belong to the modern school who believe the passions are necessary to the developement of genius;--far from it. The purest affections seem to us to have left the most enduring monuments. Among a thousand others, at least with woman, we see in Madam De Sevignè that maternal love developed all the graces of a mind unconscious certainly of its powers, but destined to become immortal. Our heroine, for such we must try to make her, had grown up free from all artificial forms of society, but yearning for associates of her own age and sex. After her father, her affections had found objects only in birds and animals, and the poor cottagers of one of the smallest parishes in the country. Living, as she did, in the midst of beautiful nature, and with the grandeur of the ocean always before her, it could not fail to impart a spiritual beauty, a religious elevation, to her mind that had nothing to do with the technical distinctions of the day. Edith Grafton was formed for gentleness and love, to suffer patiently, to submit gracefully, to think more of others' than of her own happiness. She was the light and joy of her father's hearth, and the idol of her faithful slaves, and she possessed herself that "peace that goodness bosoms ever." CHAPTER V. "The mildest herald by our fate allotted Beckons! and with inverted torch doth stand To lead us, with a gentle hand, Into the land of the departed,--into the silent land. Ah, when the frame round which in love we cling, Is chilled by death, does mutual service fail? Is tender pity then of no avail? Are intercessions of the fervent tongue A waste of hope?" WORDSWORTH. The two slaves that completed the evening group had been brought into Mr. Grafton's family at the time of his marriage. Dinah was the most striking in personal appearance. She had been born a princess in her native land; and her erect and nobly-proportioned form had never been crushed by the feeling of abject slavery. From the moment they entered the family of Mr. Grafton, they were regarded as children, even the lambs of the flock. They were both at that time young, and soon entered into the more intimate relation of husband and wife; identifying their own dearest interests, and making each other only subordinate to what seemed to them even more sacred,--their devotion to their master and mistress. Dinah's mind was of a more elevated order than Paul's, her husband. If she had not been a princess in her own country, she belonged to those upon whose souls God has stamped the patent of nobility. Naturally proud, she was docile to the instructions of her excellent mistress; and her high and imperious spirit was soon subdued to the gentle influences of domestic love, and to the purifying and elevating spirit of Christianity. Her mistress taught her to read. The Bible was her favorite book; and she became wise in that best wisdom of the heart, which is found in an intimate knowledge of the Holy Scriptures. Her character, under the burning sun of Africa, would have been intolerable; but it was tempered to a soft moonlight radiance, by the shading of Christianity. Though her imperious spirit at first rebelled against slavery, there was no toil, no fatigue, no menial service, however humble, which she would not have sought for those she loved. Love elevated every toil, and gave it, in her eyes, the dignity of a voluntary and disinterested service. She had been the only nurse of her kind mistress through her last long illness. Hers was that faithful affection that preferred long vigils at the bedside through the watches of the night,--the nurse that the sleepless eye ever found awake. Hers was that sentient sympathy that could interpret the weary look,--that love that steals into the darkened room, anticipating every wish, divining every want, and which, in silence, like the evening dew on drooping flowers, revives and soothes the sufferer. Her cares were unavailing: her kind mistress died, commending the little Edith to her watchful love. Dinah received her as if she had been more than the child of her own bosom. Henceforth she was the jewel of her life; and, if Mr. Grafton had not interposed, she would have treated her like those precious jewels of the old Scottish regalia, that are said to be approached by only one person at a time, and that by torch-light. Our forefathers and foremothers had a maxim that the will of every child must be early broken, to insure that implicit and prompt obedience that the old system of education demanded. Mr. Grafton wisely left the breaking of the little Edith's will to Dinah. As we have seen, she was of a gentle temper, but, as a child, determined and obstinate. Obstinacy in a child is the strength of purpose which, in man and woman, leads to all excellence. Before it is guided by reason, it is mere wilfulness. It was wonderful with what a silken thread Dinah guided the little Edith. She possessed in her own character the firmness of the oak, and an iron resolution, but tempered so finely by the influences of love and religion, that she yielded to every thing that was not hurtful; but there she stopped, and went not a hair's breadth further. It was beautiful to see the little Edith watching the mild and loving but firm eye of Dinah,--which spoke as plain as eye could speak,--and, when it said "_No_," yielding like a young lamb to a silken tether. Nothing is easier than to gain the prompt obedience of a young child. Gentleness, firmness, and steadiness, are all that is requisite. Gentleness, firmness, and steadiness,--the two last perhaps the rarest qualities in tender mothers. When a young child finds its mother uniform--not one day weakly indulgent, and the next capriciously severe, but always the same mild, firm being--she is to the child like a beneficent but unchanging Providence; and he no more expects his own will to prevail, than children of an older growth expect the sun to stand still, and the seasons to change their order, for their convenience. As soon as the little girl was old enough, she became the pupil of her father. Under his instruction, she could read the Latin authors with facility; and even his favorite Greek classics became playfully familiar as household words, although she really knew little about them. But the Christian ethics came home more closely to her woman's heart: their tender, pure, self-denying principles were more congenial to the truly feminine nature of the little Edith. The character and example of her mother were ever held up to her by Dinah. At night, after her little childish prayer, when she laid her head on her pillow, her last thought was of her mother. Ah, it is not necessary to be a Catholic, to believe in the intercession of saints. To a tender heart, a mother lost in infancy is the beautiful Madonna of the church; and the heart turns as instinctively to her as the devout Catholic turns to the holy mother and child. In all Edith's solitary rambles, her pensive thoughts sought her mother. There was a particular spot in the evening sky where she fancied the spirit of her mother to dwell; and there, in all her childish griefs, she sought sympathy, and turned her eye towards it in childlike devotion. CHAPTER VI. Where now the solemn shade, Verdure and gloom, where many branches meet; So grateful, when the noon of summer made The valleys sick with heat? Let in through all the trees, Come the strange rays; the forest depths are bright: Their sunny-colored foliage, in the breeze, Twinkles like beams of light. BRYANT. A few days after the evening before mentioned, Edith and her father prepared for their little journey, to visit the young student. It was a brilliant morning in the very last of October. All journeys, at this time, were made on horseback: they were mounted, therefore, Mr. Grafton on a sedate old beast, that had served him many years, and Edith on the _petite fille_ of this venerable "ancestress,"--gentle, but scarcely out of its state of coltship. The Indians, at this time, were much feared, and the shortest excursions were never undertaken without fire-arms. Paul, as well as Mr. Grafton, was well armed, and served them as a guard. As soon as they had left their own village, their course was only a bridle-path through the forest; and the path was now so hidden with the fallen leaves, that it was sometimes indicated only by marks on the trees. The trees were almost stripped of their foliage, and the bright autumn sun, shining through the bare trunks, sparkled on the dew of the fallen leaves. It was the last smile of autumn. The cold had already commenced. No sound broke the intense stillness of the forest but the trampling of their horses' feet as they crushed the dry, withered foliage. The sky was intensely blue, and without a cloud. The elasticity of the air excited the young spirits of Edith. She was gay, and, like a young fawn, she fluttered around her father, sometimes galloping her rough little pony in front, and then returning, she would give a gentle cut with her whip to her father's horse, who, with head down, and plodding indifference, regarded it no more than he did a fly. Mr. Grafton, delighted with his daughter's playfulness, looked at her with a quiet, tender smile: her gayety, to him, was like the play of her infancy, and he delighted to think that she was yet young and happy. Edith had ridden forward, and they had lost sight of her, when she came galloping back, pale as death, and hardly able to retain her seat from terror. "Edith, my child," said her father, "what has happened?" She could only point with her finger to a thin column of blue smoke that curled above the trees. Mr. Grafton knew that it indicated the presence of Indians, at this time the terror of all the inhabitants. "No doubt they are friendly, my dear child," said Mr. Grafton; and he sent Paul, who was armed, forward to reconnoitre. Paul soon returned, showing his white teeth from ear to ear. "The piccaninnies," he said. Mr. Grafton and Edith rode forward, and in a little hollow at the foot of a rock, from which bubbled a clear spring, a young Indian woman, with a pappoose at her feet, was half reclining; another child, attached in its birch cradle to the pendent branch of an elm tree, was gently rocked by the wind. A fire was built against the rock, and venison suspended before it to roast. It was a beautiful little domestic scene, and Mr. Grafton and Edith stopped to contemplate it. They soon learned that the husband of the Indian was in the forest; but he was friendly, and, after exchanging smiles, Edith dismounted. She sat on the grass, caressing the young pappoose, and talked with the mother in that untaught, mute language that young and kind hearts so easily understand. This little adventure delayed them so long that it was past noon when they reached the secluded farmhouse we have described in the first chapter of our little tale. The old man was sitting at the door, enjoying the kindly warmth of the declining sun. Seymore was not far off, at work in his laborer's frock. A vivid blush of surprise, and pleasure, and shame, covered his temples and noble brow, as he came forward to meet them. Edith, quick in her perceptions, understood his feelings, and turned aside her head while he drew off his laborer's frock. This gave an appearance of embarrassment to her first greeting, and the vivid delight faded in a moment from his brilliant countenance, and a melancholy shade passed over it. They entered the house, and Edith endeavored to remove the pain she had given, by more marked attention to Seymore; but simple and sincere, ignorant as she was of all arts of coquetry, it only increased the bashfulness of her manner. The family had already dined; but, after some delay, a repast was prepared for the travellers; and, before they were ready to depart, the long shadows of the opposite hills brought an early twilight over the little valley. Mr. Grafton looked at his daughter; he could not expose her to a dark ride through the forest; and the pressing invitation of the good old people, that they should stay the night, was accepted. After much pleasant talk with the enthusiastic young student, to which Edith listened with deep interest, Mr. Grafton was tasked to his utmost polemical and theological knowledge by the searching questions of the old Puritan. Like douce Davie Deans, he was stiff in his doctrines, and would not allow a suspicion of wavering from the orthodox standard of faith. But Edith soon gave undeniable evidence that sleep was a much better solacer of fatigue than theological discussions; and, after the evening worship had been scrupulously performed, a bed was prepared for Mr. Grafton on the floor of the room where they sat, for he would not allow the old people to give up theirs to him. Seymore gayly resigned his poor garret to Edith, and slept, as he had often done before, in the hayloft. Slept? no; he lay awake all night thinking how lovely Edith looked in her riding _Joseph_,[1] which fitted closely to her beautiful shape, and a beaver hat tied under the chin, to confine her hair in riding. She was the angel of his dreams. But why did she turn aside when they met? and the poor student sighed. [Footnote 1: We have in vain endeavored to find the etymology of this name. It might first have been of many colors, and named from the coat of the patriarch's favorite son.] Edith looked around the little garret with much interest, and some little awe. There were the favorite books, heaps of manuscripts, and every familiar object that was so closely associated with Seymore. Nothing reveals so much of another's mind and habits, as to go into the apartment where they habitually live. The bed had been neatly made with snowy sheets, and some little order given to the room. Edith opened the books, and read the marked passages; the manuscripts were all open, and with the curiosity of our mother Eve, she read a few lines. She colored to the very temples as she committed this fault; but she found herself irresistibly led on by sympathy with a mind kindred to her own; and when she laid her head on the pillow, tears of admiration and pity filled her eyes. She lay awake, forming plans for the student's advancement; and, before sleep weighed down her eyelids, she had woven a fair romance, of which he was the hero. Ah, that youth could be mistress of the ring and the lamp! then would all the world be prosperous and happy. But wisdom and experience, the true genii, appear in the form of an _aged_ magician, who has forgotten the beatings of that precious thing, the human heart. The next morning, when they were assembled at their frugal breakfast, Seymore said, "I fear you thought, from the frequent ink-spots on my little garret, that, like Luther, I had thrown my ink-bottle at the devil whenever he appeared." "I hope," said Edith, "you have not thrown away all its contents; for I had some charming fancies last night, inspired, I believe, by that very ink-bottle." Seymore blushed; but he did not look displeased, and Edith was satisfied. The next morning was clear and balmy, and, soon after breakfast, they mounted their horses for their return. There are few things more exhilarating than riding through woods on a clear autumnal morning; but Edith felt no longer the wild gayety of the previous morning. With a thoughtful countenance, she rode silently by her father's side when the path would permit, or followed quietly when it was too narrow. "You seem to have found food for thought in the student's garret, my dear," said her father. Edith blushed slightly, but did not answer. They had accomplished about half their journey, when Mr. Grafton proposed turning off from the direct path to visit an old lady,--a friend of Edith's mother, an emigrant of a noble family from the mother country. Edith followed silently, wondering she had never heard her father mention this friend of her mother before. They soon after emerged from the forest upon open fields, cleared and cultivated with unusual care. A beautiful brook ran winding in the midst, and the whole domain was enclosed in strong fences of stone. About midway was built a low, irregular, but very large farmhouse. It consisted of smaller buildings, connected by very strong palisades; and the whole was enclosed, at some distance, by a fence built of strong timbers. It was evidently a dwelling designed for defence against Indians. They entered the enclosure by an iron gate, so highly wrought and finished that it must have been imported from the mother country. Edith found herself in a large garden, that had once been cultivated with much care and expense. It had been filled with rose-bushes, honeysuckles, and choice English flowers; but all was now in a state of neglect and decay. The walks were overrun with weeds, the arbors in ruins, and the tendrils of the vines wandering at their own wanton will. It seemed as if neglect had aided the autumn frost to cover this favorite spot with the garb of mourning. There was no front entrance to this singular building; and the visitors rode round to a low door at the back, partly concealed by a pent roof. After knocking several minutes, it was opened by a very old negro, dressed in a tarnished livery, with his woolly hair drawn out into a queue, and powdered. He smiled a welcome, and, with much show of respect, led them through many dark passages to a low but very comfortable room. The walls were hung with faded tapestry; and the low ceiling, crossed with heavy beams, would have made the apartment gloomy, but for two large windows that looked into the sunny garden. The sashes were of small, lozenge panes of glass set in lead; while the bright autumn sun streamed through, and shone with cheerful light on the black oak furniture, and showed every mote dancing in its beams. Edith looked around with surprise and delight. A lady not much past the meridian of life came forward to greet them. She was dressed in an olive-colored brocade, with a snowy lawn apron and neckerchief folded across her breast. The sleeve reached just below the elbow, and was finished with a ruffle, and black silk mitts met the ruffle at the elbow. A rich lace shaded her face, and a small black velvet hood was tied closely under the chin. The lady's manner was rather stately and formal, as she greeted Mr. Grafton with all the ceremony of the old school of politeness, and looked at his daughter. "She is the image of her mother," said Lady C----. "She is a precious flower," answered Mr. Grafton, looking at Edith with pride and affection, as she stood, half respectful, half bashful, before the lady. "You have called her Mary, I hope,--her mother's name." "No," answered Mr. Grafton; "I have but _one_ Mary,"--and he looked upwards. Edith pressed closer to her father. "Call me Edith, madam," she said, with a timid smile. Lady C---- smiled also, and was soon in earnest conversation with Mr. Grafton. Edith was engaged in examining a room so much more elegant than any she had seen before. Her eyes were soon attracted by a full-length portrait on the opposite side of the apartment. It was a lady in the bloom of youth, dressed in the costume of the second Charles. It was evidently an exquisite work of art. To Edith, the somewhat startling exposure of the bust, which the fashion of the period demanded, was redeemed by the chaste and nunlike expression of the face. Tender blue eyes were cast down on a wounded dove that she cherished in her bosom; and the long, dark eyelash shaded a pale and pensive cheek. Edith was fascinated by this beautiful picture. Who was she? where did she live? what was her fate? were questions hovering on her lips, which she dared not ask of the stately lady on the couch; but, as she stood riveted before it, "O that I had such a friend!" passed through her mind; and, like inexperienced and enthusiastic youth, she thought how fondly she could have loved her, and, if it were necessary, have sacrificed her own life for hers. Lady C---- observed her fixed attention. "That is a portrait of the Lady Ursula," she said, "who built this house, and brought over from England the fruits and flowers of the garden. Alas! they are now much wasted and destroyed." At this moment, the old negro appeared, to say that the dinner was served. They passed into another low room, in the centre of which was a long oaken dining-table, the upper end raised two steps higher than the lower, and the whole was fixed to the floor. At this time, the upper end only was covered with a rich damask cloth, where the lady and her guests took their seats; the other half of the table extending bare beneath them. "In this chair, and at this table, the Lady Ursula was wont to dine with her maidens and serving-men," said Lady C----, as she took her seat in a high-backed, richly-carved chair of oak; "and I have retained the custom, though my serving-men are much reduced;" and she glanced her eye on the trembling old negro. Edith thought how dreary it must be to dine there in solitary state, with no one to speak to except the old negro, and she cast a pitying look around the apartment. A beauffet was in one corner, well filled with massive plate, and the walls were adorned with pictures in needle-work, framed in dark ebony. The picture opposite Edith was much faded and defaced, but it was meant to represent Abraham offering his son Isaac in sacrifice. "It was the work of the Lady Ursula's fingers," said Lady C----, "as every thing else you see here was created by her." "Is she now living?" asked Edith, very innocently. "Alas! no, my dear; hers was a sad fate; but her story is too long for the dining hour;" and as dinner was soon over, they returned to the other apartment. Edith longed for a ramble in the garden. When she returned, the horses were at the door, and she took a reluctant leave, for she had not heard the story of the Lady Ursula. As soon as they had turned their horses' heads outside the iron gate, Edith began her eager questions: "Who was that beautiful woman, the original of the portrait? Where did she live? How did she die? What was her fate?" Her father smiled, and related the following particulars, which deserve another chapter. CHAPTER VII. "Loveliest of lovely things are they On earth, that soonest pass away. Even love, long tried, and cherished long, Becomes more tender, and more strong, At thought of that insatiate grave From which its yearnings cannot save. "But where is she, who, at this calm hour, Watched his coming to see? She is not at the door, nor yet in the bower: He calls,--but he only hears on the flower The hum of the laden bee." BRYANT. "The Lady Ursula was the daughter of an English nobleman, the proprietor of Grondale Abbey. She was betrothed, in early life, to a young man, an officer in the army. As she was an only daughter, and inherited from her mother a large fortune, her father disapproved of her choice, and wished her to ally herself with the heir of a noble family. He was rejoiced, therefore, when a war broke out, that obliged Col. Fowler to leave the country with his regiment, to join the army. "The parting of the lovers was painful, but they parted, as the young do, full of hope, and agreed to keep up a very frequent correspondence. "For a year, his letters cheered his faithful mistress; but then they ceased, and a report of his death in battle reached her. Her father then urged the other alliance. This the Lady Ursula steadily refused; and she was soon after relieved from all importunity, by the death of her father. "She was an only daughter, but her father left several sons. His estate belonged to the eldest, by entail, and the younger brothers, having obtained large grants of land in this country, determined to emigrate to the new world. "The Lady Ursula, disappointed of all her cherished hopes, after much reflection, decided to accompany them, and become an actual settler in the wilderness. "She purchased a large farm on this beautiful part of the coast, and as she was much beloved by her dependents, she persuaded a large number to unite their fortunes with hers. She brought out twenty serving-men, and several young maidens, and created a little paradise around her. The garden was filled with every variety of fruit and flower then cultivated in England, and the strong fence around the whole was to protect her from the Indians. "At the time the Lady Ursula came to this country, she very much resembled the beautiful portrait that has charmed you so much. It was painted after she parted from her lover, and was intended as a present for him, had she not soon after heard of his death." "You have seen her, then, my dear father," said Edith. "You knew the beautiful original of that lovely portrait." "I scarcely knew her," said Mr. Grafton. "Soon after I came to this country, I was riding, one day, near a part of her estate. The day was warm and sultry: under some large spreading oaks a cloth was laid for a repast. I stopped to refresh my horse, and soon after I saw the lady approach, drawn in a low carriage. "She had brought her workmen their dinner, and after it was spread on the grass, she turned her beautiful eyes towards heaven, and asked a blessing. She then left her men to enjoy their food, and returned as she came, driving herself in a small poney chaise. "Among the maidens who came over with her from England was one who had received a superior education, and was much in her lady's confidence. This young girl was often the companion of her lady's solitary walks about her estate. One evening they were walking, and the Lady Ursula was relating the circumstances of her early life, and said that till this time she had never parted with all hope; she had cherished unconsciously a feeling that her betrothed lover might have been a captive, and that he would at length return. The young girl said, 'Why do you despair now, my lady? that is a long lane that has no turning.' The lady smiled more cheerfully. 'My bird,' she said, 'you have given me a name for my estate. In memory of this conversation, it shall be called _Long Lane_;' and it has always retained that name. "The dews were falling, and they returned to the house. Her men and maidens were soon assembled, and the Lady Ursula herself led the evening devotions. They were scarcely ended, when a loud knocking was heard at the gate. It could not be Indians! No; it was a packet from England; and, O joy unspeakable! there was a letter from her long-lost friend and lover. He had been taken prisoner when half dead on the field of battle, had been removed from one place of confinement to another, debarred the privilege of writing, and had heard nothing from her. But the war was ended, there had been an exchange of prisoners, and he hastened to England, trembling with undefined fears and joyful anticipations. He would embark immediately, and follow his mistress to the new world, where he hoped to receive the reward of all his constancy. "The lady could not finish the letter: surprise, joy, ecstasy,--all were too much for her, and the Lady Ursula fainted. As soon as she recovered, all was bustle and excitement through the house. The lady could not sleep that night, and she began immediately to prepare for the arrival of her lover. He said he should embark in a few days; she might therefore expect him every hour. "Every room in the house was ornamented with fresh flowers. A room was prepared for her beloved guest, filled with every luxury the house could furnish; and her own portrait was placed there. "She was not selfish in her joy: she told her men to get in the harvest: for when _he_ arrived, no work should be performed; there should be a jubilee. A fatted calf was selected, to be roasted whole: and every one of her large household was presented with a new suit of clothes. 'For this my _friend_,' she said, 'was lost, and is now found; was dead, and is alive again.' "When all was ready, the Lady Ursula could not disguise her impatience. She wandered restlessly from place to place, her eye brilliant, and her cheek glowing. At every sound she started, trembled, and turned pale. "Her men were at work in a distant field; and she determined again, as usual when they were far from home, to carry them their dinner. When she took her seat in the little carriage, she said, 'It is the last time, I hope, that I shall go alone.' "The repast was spread, and they all stood around for the blessing from the lips of the lady. It was remarked by her men that she had never looked so beautiful: happiness beamed from her eyes, and her usually pale cheek was flushed with joy. She folded her hands, and her meek eyes were raised. At that moment, a savage yell was heard; an Indian sprung from the thicket. With one blow of his tomahawk the Lady Ursula was leveled to the ground, and, in less than a moment, her long, fair hair was hanging at his girdle. The Indian was followed by others; and all but one of her faithful servants shared the fate of their mistress." Mr. Grafton paused; Edith's tears were falling fast. "What became of her lover?" she said, as soon as she could speak. "He arrived a few days after, to behold the wreck of all his hopes, and returned again, heart-broken, to England." "And the picture," said Edith; "why did he not claim it, and take it with him, to console him, as far as it could, for the loss of his beautiful bride?" "As she had made no will," said Mr. Grafton, "all the Lady Ursula's estate belonged to her own family. The lady we have visited to-day is a daughter of her brother." Edith continued silent, and heeded not that the shades of evening gathered around them. She was pondering the fate of the Lady Ursula. That one so young, so beautiful, so good, should lead a life of sorrow and disappointment, and meet with so sudden and dreadful a death, weighed on her spirits; for Edith had not yet solved the mystery of life. The sun had long set, when they reached their own door. Dinah had prepared the evening meal, and the cheerful evening fire; and Edith smiled her thanks. As she helped her young mistress to undress, she said, "How pale you are, and how tired! You need a sweet, refreshing sleep to rest you again." When Edith laid her head on the pillow, she called her humble friend to her: "Ah, Dinah," she said, "I have heard a story that makes me think there is no happiness on this earth." Dinah had heard the story of the Lady Ursula. "Was it not too sad, that she should meet that dreadful fate just as her lover returned, and she was going to be so happy?" Dinah thought it was very sad. "But the lady was pure and good: the words of prayer were on her lips, and she went straight to heaven without much pain. Had she married and gone to England, she might have become vain and worldly; she might have lost the heavenly purity of her character." "Yes," said Edith; "and Col. Fowler, having lived so long in the army, might not have loved her as well as she thought he did. Ah, who could live without love?" Dinah thought many could and did. "Women depended too much," she said, "on their affections for happiness. Strong and deep affections were almost always disappointed; and, if not, death must come and sever the dearest ties;" and she stooped down and kissed Edith's hand, which she held in hers. Poor Dinah! she little knew how entirely her own heart was bound up in Edith. "But what can we live for, if not for love?" said Edith. "For many things," answered Dinah, in her simple and quiet manner; "to grow better ourselves, and to do good to others; to make sacrifices, and to love _all_ good works." "I should not wish to live, were I to lose my father, and you, and"--Edith paused, and closed her eyes. Dinah drew the curtain, and bid her, softly, "good night." Edith could not sleep. She was reflecting on the fate of the Lady Ursula. With Dinah's assistance, she had begun to solve the mysteries of Providence;[2] "Without, forsaking a too earnest world, To calm the affections, elevate the soul, And consecrate her life to truth and love." [Footnote 2: The story of the Lady Ursula is founded on fact. In the author's youth, the farm of "Long Lane" retained its name, and belonged to the C---- family.] CHAPTER VIII. "A little cottage built of sticks and weeds, In homely wise, and walled with sods around, In which a witch did dwell, in loathly weedes And wilful want, all careless of her needes; So choosing solitairie to abide. Far from all neighbours." SPENSER. I wish I were a painter, or a poet, to describe a little sheltered nook on the sea-shore, where devotion would retire to worship, love to dwell in thought on the beloved, or sorrow to be soothed to rest. It was a small cove, sheltered on the north by high, overhanging cliffs, that ran out into the ocean in a bold headland. Opposite these rocks the land sloped gently down, and the ocean, lulled to rest, came in like a spent and wearied child, and rippled on a smooth, white sand. The top of the cliff was covered with many-colored shrubbery. The drooping branches of the birch, the sumac, and the aspen, tinted with the rich coloring of autumn, hung half way down the cliff, and were reflected, like a double landscape, in the water. At sunset, the entire glassy surface was burnished with the red and yellow rays of the setting sun; and when the young moon, like a fairy boat, just rested on the surface, it was a scene of beauty that could not be surpassed in any country. Immediately under the cliff, and sheltered like a swallow's nest, was the smallest of human habitations; so dark, and old, and moss-grown, that it seemed a part of the rock against which it rested. It consisted of one room: a door and single pane of glass admitted the light, and the nets hanging around, and an old boat drawn up on the beach, indicated that it was the shelter of a fisherman. The Indian summer still continued, and a few mornings after the little journey, Edith was induced, by the soft beauty of the weather, to visit the cove. It was a walk of two miles, but the inhabitants of the cottage were among the poor of her father's parish, and she was never a stranger in their cottages. The brilliant sun gave to the ever-changing ocean the tints of emerald green, royal purple, crimson, and sapphire, and made a path of light, fit for angels' footsteps. The tide was out, and the smooth beach glittered in the morning sun. The ocean, as far as the eye could reach, was smooth as glass. It was not then, as now, white with the frequent sail: a solitary vessel was then a rare occurrence, and hailed with rapture, as bringing news from _home_. The white-winged curlew was wheeling around in perfect security, and the little bay was dotted, in a few spots, with fishermen's boats. The absence of the old boat from the beach showed that the owner of the cottage was among them. Edith was sorry her friend the fisherman was absent, for the old woman who kept his house was a virago; and, indeed, was sometimes thought insane. Although Edith's moral courage was great, she possessed that physical timidity and sensitiveness to outward impressions that belongs to the poetic temperament. She lingered in her walk, watching the curlews, and listening to the measured booming of the waves as they touched the shore and then receded. The obvious reflection that comes to every mind perhaps came to hers, that thus succeed and are scattered the successive generations of men. No; she was thinking that thus arrive and depart the days of her solitary existence; thus uniformly, and thus leaving no trace behind. Will it be always thus? she sighed; and her eyes filled with tears. Her revery was interrupted by a rough voice behind her. "What have you done, that God should grant you the happiness to weep?" said the old woman, who now stood at her side. Edith was startled, for the woman's expression was very wild, but she answered mildly, "Is that so great a boon, mother, that I should deserve to lose it?" "Ask her," she said, "whose brain is burning, and whose heart is like lead, what she would give for one moist tear. O God! I cannot weep." Whatever timidity Edith felt when she first saw the malignant expression of the old woman's countenance, was now lost in pity. She knew that the poor creature's reason was impaired, and she thought this might be one of her wild moments. She laid her hand gently on her arm, and said, with a smile, "Nanny, I have come on purpose to visit you. Let us go into the house, and you shall tell me what you think, and all you want to make you comfortable for the winter." Nanny looked at Edith almost with scorn. "Tell you what I think!" she said. "As well might I tell yonder birds that are hovering with white wings in the blue sky. What do you know of sorrow? but you will not always be strangers. Sorrow is coming over you; I see its dark fold drawing nearer and nearer." A slight shudder came over Edith, but she smiled, and said, soothingly, "I came to talk with you about yourself; let my fate alone for the present." "Ah! no need to shake the glass," answered Nanny; "grief is coming soon enough to drink up your young blood. The cheek that changes like yours, with sudden flushing, withers soonest; not with age, no, not, like mine, with age, but blighted by the cold hand of unkindness; and eyes, like yours, that every emotion fills with sudden tears, soon have their fountains dry, and then, ah! how you will long and pray for one drop, as I do now!" They had entered the poor hovel, and the old woman, who had been speaking in a tone of great excitement, now turned and looked full at Edith: her beauty seemed to awake a feeling of envious contempt. The contrast between them was indeed great. Edith stood in the narrow door, blooming with youth and health. Her dark hair, which contrasted so beautifully with her soft blue eye, had lost its curl by the damp air, and she had taken off her bonnet to put back the uncurled tresses. The old woman had seated herself in an old, high-backed chair, and, with her elbows on her knees, looked earnestly at Edith. Her face might once have been fair; but it was now deeply wrinkled, and bronzed with smoke and exposure. Her teeth were gone, and her thin, shriveled lips had an expression of pain and suffering; while her eyes betrayed the envy and contempt she seemed to feel towards others. "Ah," she said, "gather up your beautiful shining locks. How long, think you, before they will be like mine? But mine were once black and glossy as yours; and now look at them." She took down from under her cap her long, gray hair, and spread it over her breast. It was dry and coarse, and without a single black hair. She laid her dark, bony hand on Edith's white arm. "Sorrow has done this," she said,--"not time: it has been of this color for fifty years." "And have you then suffered so much?" said Edith,--and her eyes filled with tears. The old woman saw that she was pitied, and a more gentle expression came into her eyes, as she fixed them on Edith. "My child," she said, "we can learn to bear sorrow, bereavement, the death of all that are twined with our own souls, old age, solitude,--all but remorse--_all but remorse_;" and the last word was pronounced almost in a whisper. "And cannot you turn to God?" said Edith; "cannot you pray? God has invited all who are sinners to come to him." She stopped; for she felt her own insufficiency to administer religious consolation. "And who told you I was so great a sinner?" said the old woman, all her fierceness returning immediately. Edith had felt herself all the comfort of opening her heart in prayer to God; but she was abashed by the old woman: she said only timidly and humbly, "Why will you not confide in my father? Tell him your wants and your misery, and he will pray for you, and help you." "Tell him! and what does he know of the heart-broken? Can he lift the leaden covering from the conscience? Can he give me back the innocence and peace of my cottage home in the green lanes of England, or the blessing of my poor old father?" And, while an expression of the deepest sadness passed over her face,--"Can he bring back my children, my beautiful boys, or bid the sea give up its dead? No, no; let him preach and pray, and let these poor ignorant people hear him; and let me,--ah, let me lie down in the green earth." Edith was shocked; and the tears she tried in vain to suppress forced themselves down her cheeks. "Poor child!" said the old woman; "you can weep for others, but yours is the fate of all the daughters of Eve: you will soon weep for yourself. With all your proud beauty and your feeling heart, you cannot keep your idols: they will crumble away, and you will come at last to what I am." Edith tried to direct her attention to something else. She looked around the cottage, which had not the appearance of the most abject poverty. The few articles of furniture were neat, and in one corner stood a comfortable-looking bed. A peat fire slumbered on the hearth, and many dried and smoked fish were hanging from the beams. She said, very mildly, "I came, Nanny, to see if you did not want something to make you comfortable for the winter. My father sent me, and you must tell me all you want." "I want nothing," said the old woman; "at least for myself. All your blankets cannot keep the cold from the heart." At this moment, a little girl about five years old came running into the cottage, with a basket of blackberries she had been picking on the cliffs above the house. Edith was well known to her, as she was to all the children of the parish. The little girl went up to her and presented the blackberries, and then ran to her grandmother with the air of a favored child, as if she were sure of a welcome. An expression that Edith had never seen, a softened expression of deep tenderness, came over the face of the old woman. "I was going to speak of this child," she said. "I feel that I shall soon be _there_,"--and she pointed towards the earth,--"and this child has no friend but me." The little girl, meantime, had crept close to the old woman, and laid her head on her shoulder. The child was not attractive: her feet and legs were bare, and her dress was ragged and much soiled; but covering her eyes and forehead was a profusion of golden-colored ringlets; and, where her skin was not grimmed with dirt and exposure to the sea air, it was delicately white. There was something touching in the affection of the poor orphan for the old woman; and the contrast, as they thus leant on each other, would have arrested the eye of a painter. Edith promised to be a friend to her grandchild, and then entreated Nanny to see her father, and confide her sorrows to him. This she steadily refused; and Edith left her, her young spirits saddened by the mystery and the grief that she could not understand. As she walked home, she thought how little the temper of the old woman was in harmony with the external beauty that environed her. The beauty was marred by sin and grief. And even in her own life, pure as it was, how little was there to harmonize with the exquisite loveliness around her! Edith was not happy: the inward pulse did not beat in harmony with the pulse of nature. She was not happy, because woman, especially in youth, is happy only in her affections. She felt within herself an infinite capacity of loving, and she had few to love, Her heart was solitary. Her affection for her father partook too much of respect and awe; and that for Dinah had grown up from her infancy, and was as much a matter of habit as of gratitude. She longed for the love of an equal, or rather of some one she could reverence as well as love. How she wished she could have been the companion of the Lady Ursula! Edith was beginning to feel that she had a soul of infinite longings; but she had not yet learnt its power to create for itself an infinite and immortal happiness; and the beauty of nature, that excited without filling her mind, only increased her loneliness. It is after other pursuits and other friends have disappointed us, that we go back to the beautiful teachings of nature; and, like a tender mother, she receives us to her bosom. "O, nature never did betray The heart that loved her." She alone is unchangeable. We may confide in her promises. I have planted an acorn by a beloved grave: in a few years I returned, and found a beautiful oak overshadowing it. Nature is liberal and impartial as she is faithful. The green earth offers a home for the eyes of the poorest beggar; the soft and purifying winds visit all equally; the tenderly majestic stars look down on him who rests in a bed of down, and on him whose pallet is the naked earth; and the blue sky embraces equally the child of sorrow and of joy. The teachings of nature are open to all. The poor heart-broken mother sees, in the parent leaves that enfold the tender heart of the young plant, and in the bird that strips her own breast of its down to shelter her young from the night air, the same instinct that teaches her to cherish the child of sorrow. He who addressed the poor and illiterate drew his illustrations from nature: the lily of the field, the fowls of the air, and the young ravens, he made his teachers to those who, like him, lived in the open air, and were peculiarly susceptible to all the influences of nature. To return from this digression. Perhaps my readers will wish to know more of poor Nanny, as she was called. Nothing was known of her early history. She had come from the mother country four years before, with this little child, then an infant, and had taken a lodging in the poor fisherman's hut. She said the little girl was her grandchild, and all her affections were centred in her. She was entirely reserved as to her previous history, and was irritated if any curiosity was expressed about it, though she sometimes gave out hints that she had been an accomplice and victim of some deed for which she felt remorse. As she was quite harmless, and the inhabitants were much scattered, she was unmolested, and earned a scanty living by picking berries, fishing, and helping those who were not quite as poor as herself. Edith visited her often, and Mr. Grafton, though she would not acknowledge him as a spiritual guide, ministered to all her temporal wants. CHAPTER IX. Thou changest not, but I am changed, Since first thy pleasant banks I ranged; The visions of my youth are past, Too bright, too beautiful, to last. BRYANT. More than two years had passed since Edith's visit to the old woman of the cliff. Changes had taken place in all the personages of my little tale; but in Edith they were most apparent. She who had sung all day as the birds sing, because she could not help it, at nineteen had learned to reflect and to analyze; a sensitive conscience had taken the place of spontaneous and impulsive virtue; and the same heart that could be happy all day long in nursing a young chicken, or watching the opening of a flower, or carrying food to a poor old woman, now closed her days with _thinking_, and moistened her pillow with unbidden tears. It is the natural course of womanhood. Ah! that we could always be children. We have seen that after Edith had learned the story of the Lady Ursula, she began to solve some of the mysteries of life. She had since turned over many of its leaves, all fair with innocence and truth, but she had not yet found an answer to the question, "Why do we suffer?" The change that had taken place in young Seymore was deeper and sterner, but not so apparent. Externally, he was the same beautiful youth that he was when we introduced him to our kind readers, in his attic. Since then, he had had much to struggle with; but poverty had not been his greatest temptation. He could not indeed hope to be exempt from the bitter experience of almost all who at that time were scholars. To this very day, the sons of clergymen, and many of the most distinguished men in New England, have held the plough in the intervals of their preparation for the university. How many poor mothers have striven, and labored, and denied themselves all but the bare necessaries of life, that their sons might gain that sole distinction in New England,--an education at one of the colleges. Poverty was not his greatest trial. When he first saw Edith, her timid and innocent beauty had made an impression on his fancy, that all his subsequent dreams in solitude, and his lonely reveries, had only served to deepen. She seemed to embody all his imaginations of female loveliness. He had, indeed, never before seen a beautiful girl, and he had no acquaintance with women, except his grandmother. The remembrance of his mother came softened to him, like something unconnected with earth; and when he thought of the darkened chamber, the pale, faint smile, her hand on his head, and her solemn consecration of him to the church, on her death-bed, he felt a sensation of awe that chilled and appalled him. After his acquaintance with Edith and her father, life wore a brighter hue. His efforts to gain an education to distinguish himself were redoubled. Mr. Grafton aided in every way; and with the sympathy of his kind friend came the image of his beautiful daughter. His labors were lightened, his heart cheered, by the thought that she would smile and approve. Thus days of bodily labor were succeeded by nights of study; and, for some time, with his youth and vigorous health, this was hardly felt as an evil. But we have seen, in our first chapter, that he had moments of despondency, and of late they had been of more frequent occurrence. At such times, the remembrance of his mother, and her solemn dedication of him to the church, came back with redoubled power, and the time he had spent in lighter literature, in poetry, and even his dreams of Edith, seemed to him like sins. A darker and less joyous spirit was gradually overshadowing him. A morbid sensitiveness to moral evil, an exaggerated sense of his own sins, and of the strict requisitions of the spirit of the times, clouded his natural gayety. His visits to the parsonage, indeed, always dissipated his fears for a little time. Edith received him as a valued friend, and he returned to his studies, cheered by her smiles, and sustained by new hopes. He never analyzed the cause of this change, or the nature of his feelings: but, when he thought of his degree at the college, it was her sympathy and her approbation that came first to his mind; and, when he sent his thoughts forward to a settlement and a parsonage like that of his venerable friend's, it would have been empty, and desolate, and uninhabitable, if Edith had not been there. It was in Edith's beloved father that a year had made the saddest change. The winter had been unusually severe, and the snow deep. His parish was much scattered, and it was his custom to visit them on horseback; and, in the deepest snows, and most severe storms, he had never refused to appear at their bedsides, or to visit and comfort the afflicted. He had lived, and labored, and loved among his simple flock, but he now felt that his ministry was drawing towards a close. In March, he had returned from one of his visits late at night, and much wet and fatigued. The next morning he found himself ill with a lung fever. It left him debilitated, and much impaired in constitution; and a rapid decline seemed the almost inevitable consequence at his advanced age. CHAPTER X. Pride, Howe'er disguised in its own majesty, Is littleness; and he who feels contempt For any living thing, hath faculties Which he has never used. O, be wiser, then! Instructed that true knowledge leads to love: True dignity abides with him alone, Who, in the silent hour of inward thought, Can still suspect, and still revere himself, In lowliness of heart. WORDSWORTH. It has been the fashion, of late, to depreciate the clergymen among our Puritan fathers. It is true they erred, but their errors belonged to the time and the circumstance that placed in their hands unusual power. There were among them men that would have done honor to any age; perfect gentlemen, who would have adorned a drawing-room, as well as consecrated a church. The traits that constitute _gentlesse_ do not belong to any age or any school: they are not formed by the conventions of society, nor the forms that are adopted to facilitate and give grace to the intercourse of equals. The precept that says, "In honor preferring one another," if acted on in perfect sincerity of heart, and carried out in all the intercourse of society, would form perfect gentlemen and ladies. We have heard Jesus called the most finished gentleman that ever lived. Undisguised benevolence, humility, and sincerity, would form such gentlemen, and the intercourse of society, founded on such principles, would be true, noble, graceful, and most attractive. Such a gentleman was Edith's father; and while he was an honored and cherished guest at the tables of the fathers and princes of the colony, he seldom left his humble parish. His influence there was unbounded, and his peculiarities, if he had them, belonged to the age. In an age of persecutors, he was so averse to persecution, that he did not escape the charge of heresy and insincerity. The clergy of that time loved to preach from the Old Testament, and to illustrate the lives of the patriarchs. An unlimited and implicit faith, that made each believe he was the especial care and favorite of God, was the foundation of the religion of the Old Testament. Our fathers had much of the same persuasion. To an audience of fishermen, and scattered cultivators of the sterile fields of New England, such a faith came home to their hearts; the one committing their frail boats to the treacherous ocean, the other depending on the early and the latter rains, and genial skies, for their support. June had come, the genial month of June, and Mr. Grafton was not revived by its soft air. He declined daily, and Edith, his tender nurse, could not conceal from herself that there was little hope of his ever reviving. Dinah had watched with him almost every night, but, worn out with fatigue, Edith had persuaded her to take some moments for repose. After a night of much restlessness, towards morning, her father fell into a tranquil slumber. Edith was alone in the darkened room, and as she sat in the deep silence by his bedside, an old-fashioned clock, that stood in the corner, seemed, to her excited nerves, to strike its monotonous tick directly on her temples. A small taper was burning in the chimney, and the long shadows it cast served only to darken the room. From time to time, as Edith leaned over her father, she touched his forehead with her hand: in the solitude and stillness, it seemed a medium of communication with the mind of her father, and held the place of language. At length he opened his eyes, and seeing her bending over him, he drew her towards him, and kissed her tenderly. In a whisper, he said, "I feel, my child, that I am dying." "Do not weep," said he, observing how much Edith was shocked; "you can trust in God. You can be near me in death, as you have been in life. Now is the time, my Edith, to feel the value of all those principles we have learned together through life. I feel that God is near us, and that when I am gone, he will be near to you." Edith threw herself into his arms. Her father laid his hand on her head, and prayed audibly. She arose more calm, and asked him if she should not call the faithful slaves. "No, my child," he said; "let the poor children"--he always named them thus--"let the poor children sleep. God is here. I hold your hands in mine. What more do we want? Let the quiet night pass. The morning will be glorious! it will open for me in another world." It was a beautiful sight, that young and timid woman sustaining her aged father, and he trusting so entirely in God, and feeling no anxiety, no grief, but that of leaving her alone. As she sat thus holding his hand in hers, his breath became less frequent; he fixed his eyes on hers with a tender smile. His breathing stopped--his spirit was gone! Edith did not shriek, or faint. It was the first time she had been in the chamber of death, and a holy calmness, a persuasion that her father's spirit was still there, came over her. She closed his eyes, and sat long with his hand strained in hers. The first note of the early birds made her start. She arose, and opened the window. The morning had dawned, and every leaf, every blade of grass, was glittering in the early dew. Her father's horse, that had borne him so many years, was feeding in the enclosure. At the sound of the window, he came forward: then a sense of her loss came over Edith, and she burst into tears. CHAPTER XI. "----Whene'er the good and just Close the dim eye on life and pain, Heaven watches o'er their sleeping dust, Till the pure spirit comes again. Though nameless, trampled, and forgot, His servant's humble ashes lie, Yet God has marked and sealed the spot, To call its inmate to the sky." It was one of those brilliant and transparent days of June, never surpassed in any climate. The little church stood clearly defined against the deep blue sky. The ocean, as the sun shone on it, was gemmed with a thousand glancing diamonds, and here and there a light sail rose and fell upon it, like the wings of a bird. It was so still that the hum of the noontide insects was distinctly heard. At intervals, the slow tolling of the little bell sent its echoes back from the surrounding forest. It was the day of the funeral of the beloved pastor, and small groups of the parishioners began to collect about the church and the house. Heartfelt grief seemed to shadow every countenance, but the severe and reserved character of the New England Puritans allowed them to make no demonstration of sorrow: they shut up within themselves every trace of emotion, and spoke only in whispers, with a stern, determined air. The garb and appearance of the people was rough and homely. There were farmers with their wives, on pillions; fishermen with their rough sea-coats; aged women, bent and wrinkled, who had come to lay in the grave one whom they had hoped would have prayed at and blessed their own burial. The house at length was filled with those who had the nearest claim, and the ministers of the surrounding villages darkened, with their black dress, the little apartment. The two slaves stood near the bier, and the excitable temperament and violent grief of the poor Africans contrasted with the stern, and solemn, and composed countenances around them. Edith at last came in. She was calm, but very pale; and, as she entered the room, she gave her hand to those who stood nearest. She tried to speak, but the words died on her lips. Dinah was in a moment at her side. Her delicate and youthful beauty contrasted by her sable friend, and her lonely, unprotected state touched the hearts of these stern, but also tenderly affectionate Puritans, and there were tears in many eyes, as they looked at her with respect and interest. The windows were all open; the concert of joyous birds, in their season of love and happiness, showed no sympathy with man in his grief. It was so still that the silvery sound of the waves, as they touched the beach, was distinctly heard; and the voice of prayer, as it broke the silence, was the only human sound. The voice of prayer ceased, and the quick hoof of a horse was heard. In a few moments Seymore entered. He had heard of the death of his friend, and, impelled by an irresistible impulse, he could not remain at his studies. As he entered he was violently agitated, for death and sorrow were new to him. The color rushed to Edith's pale cheek, as she silently gave him her hand; but she felt a calmness which she could not herself understand. A change had been wrought in her character by that nightly death-bed, and by four days of lonely sorrow. She felt that she must rely on herself. The changes that are wrought by sorrow and reflection in a timid woman are not less apparent than those wrought by love. They seem, at first, to take from the exquisite feminineness of the character, but they bring out the latent beauty and strength of her spiritual nature. It is said "that every wave of the ocean adds to the beauty of the pearl, by removing the scum that reveals its interior and mysterious light." It is thus with time and sorrow: they reveal to ones self the inward pearl beyond all price, on which we must forever rely to guide us. The oldest of the parishioners now approached, to bear their beloved pastor on their shoulders to the silent grave-yard. The ceremonial of a country burial is extremely simple, but they had then an affecting custom which has since been discontinued. As they bore the body to the grave, they sang an anthem, and, as it entered the little enclosure, the groups on each side receded, and uncovered their heads. The boys were hushed to awe, as the anthem rose on the evening air; the sun sank behind the forest, and its last rays were reflected from the grave of this servant of God. The exquisite beauty of the scene oppressed and wearied Edith as she returned to her solitary home. She felt that though nature may sympathize with our joy, there is nothing in her bosom that responds to our sorrow. But she did not return alone: Seymore had followed her; and, as they entered the deserted room, her father's arm-chair was in its accustomed place: even his slippers had been accidentally placed ready for him. The curtain had been removed from her mother's picture, and as she approached it, she met its pitying eyes fixed upon her. The unnatural tension of the nerves, which had denied her, for the last four days, the relief of tears, gave way, and the very fountains of her soul seemed opened. She sank down on a chair, and yielded to the overwhelming emotion. There are states of the mind when the note of a bird, the fall of a leaf, the perfume of a flower, will unlock the bars of the soul, as the smallest sound will loosen the avalanche. The unexpected sight of her mother's picture had overpowered Edith. O that we should receive a mother's love in infancy, when we cannot value or understand it; and, in after life, when we need it most, when we long for the heart that has cherished us, "we must go back to some almost forgotten grave," where that warm heart lies that loved us as no other will ever love us. Seymore was terrified: he had never seen grief like this, and he walked the room with rapid and agitated steps. Edith longed to be alone. She tried to conquer her emotion, but the sobs that came from the bottom of her heart shook her whole frame. At last she said, "Pray leave me; I wish to be, _I must_ be alone." Seymore could not leave her thus. He took her passive hand. "O," said he, "would that I could spare you one of these tears! If you could know how I reverence your sorrow, how my heart bleeds for you--O pardon me--if you could see my heart, you would see there a devotion, a reverence, such as angels feel in heaven. Might I dare to hope that you would forgive, that you would pardon the poor, unknown, homeless scholar, that he has dared to love you?" Edith had become calm as he spoke thus impetuously, and her hand grew cold in his. She looked up: a beautiful and timid hope shone in her eyes; and, though her tears fell fast, a smile was on her lips. "We are both homeless," she said,--"both orphans." He caught from her expression a rapturous hope. At this moment the faithful slave Dinah opened the door to look after her young mistress. It was the first time since her childhood, that the face of her sable friend had been unwelcome to Edith; but perhaps it was happy for both; it arrested their tumultuous emotions, and gave Seymore, who left the room immediately, time to arrange his thoughts, and reflect on the blissful prospect opening before him. Edith held out her hand to her friend. I have before remarked the figurative expressions in which Dinah clothed her thoughts. Her language and her feelings were fervid, like her climate. "I thought," she said, "the heartsease had withered in your bosom; but it has sprung up, and is blooming again." Then seeing the crimson overspread Edith's cheek, she added, "perhaps your warm tears have revived it." But, as if ashamed of having said something not perfectly true, she took Edith's hand, looked earnestly in her face, as if asking an explanation of this sudden change. Edith was wholly overcome. She threw herself into the arms of the faithful slave, and longed to hide herself there. None but a mother could understand her feelings, or one who had been to her in the place of a mother, and knew every beating of her innocent heart. There are moments when woman needs the sympathy of a mother, that first and dearest friend of every human being. Dinah could not understand the imaginative character of Edith's mind; she could not sympathize with her thirst for knowledge, her love of the beautiful and the unknown; but the tear in her eye, and her quivering lip, as she pressed her child closer and closer to her, as though she would cherish her in her inmost heart, showed that she understood her nature, and sympathized in her happiness with all a woman's heart. That night, when Edith laid her head on her pillow, she felt a secret joy, a lightness of heart, which she could not understand. She reproached herself that she could feel so happy so soon after the death of her father. She did not know how insensibly she had suffered an interest in Seymore to grow in her heart, and that the sentiments of nature are weak when brought into contact with an absorbing passion. When she came to offer her prayer for guidance and protection, a feeling of gratitude, of thankfulness, overpowered all other emotions, and she closed her eyes, wet with grateful tears. CHAPTER XII. "Is this a tale? Methinks it is a homily." Seymore indulged himself with a few days of perfect, unalloyed happiness. The tumultuous feeling of joy subsided, the dark shade that had begun to gather over his mind vanished, and a sober certainty of bliss--bliss too great, he feared, for mortal, appeased his too keen sensibility to his own imperfections. The character of Edith was formed to produce this effect. There was nothing exaggerated in it. Her solitary life, without mother or sister, had taught her great self-reliance; while her genuine humility had preserved her from that obstinacy of opinion that a want of knowledge of the world sometimes creates. The grave and solid studies she had entered into with her father had strengthened her mind, as it were, with the "bark and steel" of literature; while the native tenderness of her heart had prevented her from becoming that odious creature, a female pedant. Her greatest charm was the exquisite feminineness of her character: this perhaps, without religion, would have degenerated into weakness, or, without an enlightened reason, into superstition. How entirely is the divine spirit of Christianity adapted to woman's nature! loving as she does, and trembling for the objects of her love; doomed "To weep silent tears, and patient smiles to wear, And to make idols, and to find them clay." If ever woman enjoyed all worldly advantages, if ever she was flattered, made an idol, and worshipped, it was in Europe previous to the French Revolution. Yet the letters and memoirs of the women of that time, light and frivolous as they are, reveal a depth of sadness, a desolation of spirit, a weariness of life,--destitute as many of them are of all aspiration after an immortal hope,--that tells us how indispensable to woman's nature are the hopes and consolations of religion. Love was at that time the object of woman's existence,--a love that, with our standard of morals, leaves a stain as well as a wound; but, with their peculiar notions, it robbed them neither of the adulation of society, nor of their own self-respect. But, with all this, together with their influence in the affairs of state, we read their memoirs not only with a shame that burns on the cheek, but with feelings of the deepest commiseration. How few, even of the happiest among women, are blest with that love that can fill and satisfy a woman's heart! How many, disappointed and weeping o'er "idols of clay," stretch out the arms of their souls for something they can lean on in safety! How many, solitary at heart in the midst of gayety, turn away to look into themselves for something more satisfying! How many broken and contrite spirits feel that he alone who knows what is in the heart of man, can teach them to bear a wounded spirit! How full of sympathy for woman is the New Testament! He knew the heart of woman who said, "She is forgiven; for she has loved much." It must have been a woman who first thought of prayer. Madame de Stael says that a mother with a sick child must have invented prayer; and she is right: a woman would first pray, not for herself, but for the object of her tenderness. It had been an object much at heart with Mr. Grafton to save a little property for his daughter. He had succeeded in purchasing the small house, and a few acres about it, which was kept in perfect order and good cultivation under the excellent management of Paul. Edith's unprotected state, being without near relatives, made him desirous that she should have an independent home among his attached but humble parishioners. He knew that she was scarcely less beloved by them than himself. But he looked forward to his place being filled by a stranger; and he was mainly anxious that her comfort should not depend on the bounty, or even the gratitude, of the most disinterested of his flock. He was able to accomplish his wish, and leave her a small patrimony, abundantly equal to the wants of their frugal establishment; and Edith thanked God, with tears of gratitude, that she was not obliged to separate herself from the graves of both her parents. The summer and winter that followed her father's death were passed in tranquillity by Edith, watched over and guarded with the most faithful care by her two sable friends. No pastor had yet been chosen in her father's place; and an unacknowledged but cherished hope arose in her mind, that Seymore might one day stand in that sacred place, hallowed in her affections, and now regarded with trembling hope. Seymore indulged himself with as many short visits to Edith as his circumstances would allow, always struggling as he was with almost insurmountable obstacles, and straining every nerve to attain that goal of his hopes, a position in society that would allow him to claim his bride. The joy that her presence imparted to his whole being, the change that came over him the moment his weary eye caught sight of the steeple that rose above the dear spot of all his dreams, the sunshine that she diffused in the dark places of his mind, prevented Edith from being sensible of the change, the painful change, that a constant struggle with the coarse realities of his position had made in his noble nature. She had often, indeed, said, with Jenny Deans, "It is no matter which has the siller, if the other wants it." But Seymore's nature was proud as well as tender. He possessed, as we have before seen, the temperament of the poet--that pure, rare, and passionate nature so little able to contend with the actual difficulties of life--to whom every-day regular labor is a burden hard to bear. We have seen that his deep religious impressions had made him consecrate all his fine powers to the service of God; and the tenderness of his conscience made him fear that the sacrifice was imperfect. The conflict was ever in his soul. He was unable to satisfy his own aspirations after a spirituality and purity, which is the slow growth of a life of exertion. Despondency so intimately allied to the poetic temperament produced a morbid sensibility, a sort of monomania in his mind, having the effect of those singular mirages seen from the sea-shore, where the most trivial and familiar objects are magnified to temples and altars, and hung, as it were, in the clouds. We touch with a reverend spirit and trembling hand the mysterious influences of hidden causes, uniting with unhappy external circumstances, to involve those who seem formed to bless and to be blessed in a self-tormenting melancholy. I know not that, under any circumstances, Seymore's would have been a happy spirit. Under the present, his love for Edith seemed the only light that could save him from total shipwreck. The two lovers wrote to each other as often as the state of communication between different parts of the country would allow, before post-roads had been established, and when letters were often entrusted to wandering Indians, and the postage paid with a little tobacco, or a handful of meal. We may judge of the nature of Seymore's letters by one of Edith's, which appears to be an answer to one of his: _October, 1692._ How can I be so little solitary, when I am more alone than ever? I awake from dreams of you to feel your presence still with me; and my first emotion is gratitude to God for having given me this happiness. Forgive me, beloved father! that I can be so content without you! The bonds of nature are weakened, when an absorbing emotion fills the heart. The time may come when nature will be avenged. Ah, it cannot be wrong to love as I do. God has opened this fountain in the desert of life, as a solace for all its evils. Ah, how can those who love be sufficiently grateful to God? Every hour should be an act of adoration and praise. You will tell me, my friend, that this all-absorbing love should be given to God. I cannot separate God from his works. This beautiful nature--the ocean, in all its majesty, the quiet stars, as they seem to look down upon us, the beauty spread every where around me--remind me always of God. I cannot represent to myself God in his personal form: I feel him every where, and I love him especially for having made us capable of love. That religion should be a different thing from this pervading love and reverence, I cannot yet understand. Faith is the gift of God; such faith as you, my dear friend, wish me to possess; but it seems to me, like all the other precious gifts of the soul, to be obtained by earnest prayer and infinite strivings. When the young man mentioned in the gospel came to our Saviour, he demanded of him no profession of mysterious faith, but only a proof of disinterested love. Religion is not a distinct thing from the every-day life, as--pardon me, my dear friend--I think you would make it. It is like the air we breathe, requisite for a life of goodness, but not less nor more perceptible to our well-being than the air is to our existence. It should not make itself felt in storms and tempests, in hot and cold fits, but in a calm and equal power, sustaining, purifying, and nourishing our souls. You believe the direct influence of the Spirit of God upon every individual mind is necessary, to make him a religious being. I cannot but think that the _indirect_ influence, the beautiful and ever-renewed miracle of nature, the observation of God's providence in the care of his creatures, and the study of the adaptation of Christianity to our particular dispositions--not merely by a process of reasoning, but aided by the religious sentiment which seems to me innate and natural to every human being--is more powerful. And now that I have finished my sermon, let me scold you for wronging yourself, as you too often do. _Truth_ is not to be set aside, in looking at our own characters. We should do the same justice to ourselves that we do to others. There is a secret dishonesty in depreciating ourselves. Could I esteem and honor you as I do, were you what you call yourself? I honor you for all the noble exertions you have made,--for the ardor of your love of truth and duty. Ah, call me not a partial and blinded judge: your true honor and your most precious happiness are too dear to me to allow me to be a false or partial friend. I would give you a little, a very little vanity; not enough to make you a sumptuous robe, but just enough to keep you from the cold. You say you look upon this delusion of witchcraft, that is spreading through the country, with fearful and trembling interest, and that you believe God may permit his will to be made known by such instruments as these. God forbid that I should limit his power! but I fear these poor children are wicked or diseased, and that Satan has nothing to do with it. The old woman at the cliff is now very ill: I trust God will take her from the world before she is seized for a witch. There are many ready to believe that she has ridden through the air on a broomstick, or gone to sea in an egg-shell. But you do not love me to jest on this subject. Forgive me! I will not jest again. And this balmy Indian summer,--it seems as if it would last forever. But I am so happy now, I can hardly believe there is sorrow in the world, or winter in the year. Winter has no terror now: the long evenings and nights bring me dreams of you, and I awake with the consciousness that you are mine. * * * Perhaps the reader may think the letter just read a very singular love-letter. But it must be remembered that religion was the all-absorbing sentiment of the Puritans, and that Seymore's enthusiastic temperament made it the subject that most interested him in his letters to Edith. Edith's mind was too well balanced and too happily constituted to allow her to partake of his extravagance; but she gave him that dearest proof of love, that of softening all his defects, and even exalting them into the most precious virtues. CHAPTER XIII. "Apart she lived, and still she rests alone: Yon earthly heap awaits no flattering stone." As it was mentioned in Edith's letter, the old woman who lived at the cottage by the cliff had become very ill, and it was apparent that she would never leave her bed again. Edith had been assiduous in her kindness. Dinah had been with her a part of every day, and had watched with her many nights. Edith insisted, at last, that her poor slave should sleep, and resolved herself to take her place by the bedside. The old woman had made herself feared and hated by the scattered inhabitants. She was called a witch, and they deserted her sick bed,--a thing most rare among the kind-hearted dwellers in a thinly-peopled neighborhood. It was a threatening evening when Edith took her station by the low pallet of the sick woman. The solitary hut, as I have mentioned, stood on the edge of the little bay; and, at high water, it was almost washed by the waves. How different the whole scene from that brilliant morning when Edith visited the tenant of the cottage! A leaden cloud seemed now to rest on the water, shutting out the fair sky; and, as the sullen waves rolled on the beach, a close and stifling air oppressed Edith's spirits. The old woman was alone: her poor grandchild, wearied with the services of the day, had fallen asleep with her hand in her grandmother's, and her head falling over the pillow: her long hair rested on the old woman's face, which she seemed not to have strength to remove. Edith's first care was to take the little girl from her grandmother's pillow; and, laying her gently on the foot of the bed, she took off her own shawl, and made a pillow for her head. The old woman looked at her without speaking, and a tear coursed slowly down her cheek. Edith hoped the hardness was melting from her heart. She took her hand tenderly in hers, and whispered, "Cannot you put your trust in God?" "I cannot pray--to God; no, it is too late. But"--and her voice was interrupted with short, impeded breath. She pointed to the child, and looked at Edith with an expression so imploring, so full of tenderness for the child, of agony that she must leave her, of appeal to Edith's compassion, that the tears started to her eyes, and she answered, "Fear nothing: I will take care of her; I will be a mother to her." The old woman pressed her hand: the look of agony passed away from her features, and she closed her eyes to sleep. Edith sat silently by the bedside. The tempest that had been gathering over the water now shook the little dwelling: torrents of rain fell, and frequent flashes lighted the little room. At last, a gust of wind from the broken window extinguished the taper, and Edith was in total darkness. It was a warm night for the season, and no fire on the hearth to afford a spark by which she could relight it. Edith trembled; but she tried to be calm. She only feared the old woman would die while she held her hand, which she imagined was already growing cold in hers. The storm gradually passed away into silence. There was no sound but the short, interrupted breath of her patient, and the soft, healthful, regular breathing of infancy. Edith longed for the dawn, and looked anxiously through the little casement for the first gray streak. As far as the eye could reach, the bay was white with foam; but no light yet dawned upon it from the morning. The old woman awoke. "I cannot see you," she said; "a film is over my eyes." Edith told her the lamp had been extinguished with the wind. "Alas!" she said; "and I must die as I have lived,--in darkness." Edith assured her she was not then dying, and begged her to try to pray, or to listen while she endeavored, as far as she was able, to offer a prayer to God. "No," she said; "I have lived without prayer, and I will not mock God on my death-bed; but, if there is mercy for me, God may listen to you, pure and good as you have ever been." Edith knelt; and, with lips trembling with timidity and responsibility, she uttered a low, humble, and earnest prayer. The old woman seemed at first to listen; but her mind soon wandered: broken and, as it afterwards would almost appear, prophetic sentences escaped from her lips: "Judgments are coming on this unhappy land,--delusions and oppression. Men and devils shall oppress the innocent. The good like you, the innocent and good, shall not escape!" Then she looked at the sleeping child: "Can the lamb dwell with the tiger, or the dove nestle with the hawk? But you have promised: you will keep your word; and when God counts his jewels"-- Edith arose from her knees, and trembled like a leaf. With inexpressible joy, her eyes fell on her own Dinah, standing looking on, with the deepest awe in her countenance. She had risen before the dawn, and come to relieve her young mistress, and had entered while Edith was kneeling. She now insisted on taking her place. Edith committed to her care the sleeping child, and then sought the repose the agitation of the night had rendered so necessary. Before evening, the old woman died; and the next day she was to be committed to the earth. Little preparation was necessary for her funeral. No mourners were to be summoned from afar: there was no mockery of grief. She had lived disliked by her neighbors. A few old women came from curiosity to see old Nanny, who had never been very courteous in inviting her neighbors to visit her; and they came now to see how she had contrived to live upon nothing. The poor child, since the death of her only friend, had refused to leave the body, but sat subdued and tearless, like a faithful dog, watching by the side of her grandmother, apparently expecting her to return again to life. Towards evening, a few persons were assembled in the hut to pay the last Christian services to the dead. The old woman had always said she would be buried, not in the common grave-yard, but near a particular rock where her last son who was drowned had been washed on shore and buried. The neighbors were whispering among themselves, as to what was to be the fate of the poor child; every one avoiding to look at her, lest it should imply some design to take charge of her. The child looked on with wonder, as though she hardly knew why they were there. She had clung to Dinah as the best known among them; but, when the prayer was finished, and they began to remove the coffin, she uttered a loud cry, flew from Dinah's arms, and clung to the bier with all her strength. The men instinctively paused and laid down their burden. The voice of nature in that little child was irresistible. They looked at Edith, who had now made known her promise to the grandmother to take care of the child, to ask what they should do. She took the child in her arms and quieted her till all was over, and then, consigning her to the care of Dinah, she was taken to their own home. Edith felt deeply the responsibility she had assumed in the care and instruction of this child. She knew the tenderness of her own heart, her yielding nature, and feared she should err on the side of too much indulgence. She said to herself, "She shall never need a mother's care. I know the heart of the orphan, and no unkindness shall ever make her feel that she is motherless." The poor little Phoebe had cried herself to sleep in Dinah's arms, and had been put to bed in her soiled and dirty state. The next morning a clean new dress banished the memory of her grandmother, and her childish tears were dried, and grief forgotten. Dinah had brought to aid her the power of soap and water, and had disentangled her really soft and beautiful hair; and when Edith came down, she would scarcely have known her again. The soil of many weeks had been taken from the child's skin, and, under it, her complexion was delicately fair: her cheeks were like pale blush roses, and her lips were two crimson rosebuds. But with this youthful freshness, which was indeed only the brilliancy of color, there was an expression in her face that marred its beauty. It was coarse and earthly, and the absence of that confiding openness we love to see in children. It reminded one of her old grandmother; although the one was fair, and smooth, and blooming, the other dark and wrinkled, a stranger would have said they were related. Edith called the child to her, and kissed her fair cheek; but when she observed the likeness to the old woman, she turned away with a slight shudder, and something like a sigh. Dinah, an interested observer of every passing emotion, said, softly, "The cloud is not gone over yet; a few more tears, and it will pass away from her young brow, and then it will be fair as your own." "It is too fair already," answered Edith; "so much beauty will be hard to guide; and then look at that dark, wayward expression." "Say not so, my dear mistress;" and Dinah drew back the hair from her fair forehead. "Look at her beautiful face: in a few days your heart will yearn to her as mine does to you." "God grant I may be as faithful to my duty," said Edith; but this is not the way to begin it; and she drew the child to her knee, and a few moments of playful caressing brought smiles to the young countenance that nearly chased away the dark expression. Edith, although superior to the age in which she lived, could not but be influenced by its peculiarities. The belief that an all-pervading and ever-present Providence directed the most minute, as well as the more important events of life, was common to the Puritans. She could not free herself from a superstitious feeling that this child was to have, in some way or other, she knew not how, an unfavorable influence upon her happiness. She was free, indeed, from that puerile superstition "That God's fixed will from nature's wanderings learns." But the tempest that shook the little building, the incoherent ravings of the old woman's mind, and the solemn darkness of the hour when she promised to take charge of the child, had made a deep impression on her mind. It is true "that coming events cast their shadows before." Who has not felt presentiments that certain persons and certain places are, in some mysterious way, we know not how, connected by invisible links with our own destiny? The ancients gave to this hidden and mysterious power the name of Fate. The tragedy of life arises from the powerless efforts of mortals to contend with its decrees. All that the ancient tragedy taught was, to bear evils with fortitude, because they were inevitable; but the "hope that is full of immortality" has taught us that they are the discipline appointed by Heaven to perfect and prepare our souls for their immortal destiny. CHAPTER XIV. "There has been too much cause to observe that the Christians that were driven into the American desert which is now called New England, have, to their sorrow, seen Azahel dwelling and raging there in very tragical instances." COTTON MATHER. The delusion that passed through our country in 1692 has left a dark chapter in the history of New England. But it was not alone in New England that this fearful delusion influenced the minds and actions of men. It was believed all over Europe, in the seventeenth century, that evil spirits mingled in the concerns of mortals, and that compacts were made with them, and sealed with the blood of many of the most eminent persons of the age. The desire to penetrate the mysteries of the spiritual natures that we believe every where to surround us, has taken different forms in different states of society. In New England, it seems to have begun in the wicked fancies of some nervous or really diseased children, who were permitted, at last, to accuse and persecute persons who were remarkable for goodness or intellect, and especially females who were distinguished for any excellence of mind or person. An historian of the time says, "In the present world, it is no wonder that the operations of evil angels are more sensible than that of the good; nevertheless 'tis very certain that the good angels fly about in our infected atmosphere to minister to the good of those who are to be the heirs of salvation. Children and ignorant persons first complained of being tormented and affected in divers manners. They then accused some persons eminent for their virtues and standing in society." We have seen that Edith was disposed to think lightly of the subject at first, although she rejoiced that the old woman of the cliff had escaped suspicion by a timely death. But when she found that some of her own neighbors had been suspected, and that one old woman, in another village, for denying all knowledge of evil spirits, had been executed, she was filled with consternation; and when others, to save themselves from the same dreadful fate, increased the delusion of the times by confessing a compact with the evil one, her pity was mingled with indignation. With so much clearness of intellect, and simplicity of heart, she could not persuade herself that it was any thing but wilful blindness, and a wicked lie. But Edith began soon to feel much anxiety for her faithful Dinah. Persons in any way distinguished for any peculiarity were most likely to be accused, and she had secretly made arrangements to send her away, and conceal her, should the smallest indication of suspicion fall upon her. For herself Edith had no fears. It would have been hard to make this pure and simple-minded creature believe that she had an enemy in the world. She had not read the French maxim, that there may be such a weight of obligation that we can only be released from it by ingratitude. Dinah had remarked, for several days, in the little Phoebe most strange and unnatural contortions, and writhings of the body, startings and tremblings, turning up her eyes and distorting her mouth; and also that she took little food, and often was absent from home; but, with her usual tenderness, and fear of giving anxiety to Edith, she had forborne to mention it. Indeed, the child had always been wayward and strange, and especially indocile to Edith's instructions, although she seemed at times to have a strong affection for her. She was fond of long rambles in the woods, and of basking in the sun alone on the beach, and retained all her love for those vagrant habits she had learned from her grandmother. Edith had too much tenderness and indulgence to restrain what appeared a harmless and perhaps healthful propensity. She had tried, however, to civilize the poor, neglected child, and had taught her to say her prayers every night, kneeling at her side. It was a cold, chilly evening in our tardy spring: the little family had drawn around the cheerful evening fire, and the evening meal was just finished: Edith felt happy, for she had been reading a cheerful letter from Seymore. The shutters were closed, and she had indulged the little Phoebe, as she often did at this hour, with a noisy game. Edith was already tired: she looked at the clock: it was the bed hour for the child. "Come, my child, be serious for a moment, and say your evening prayer." Phoebe kneeled: the prayer was short, but whenever she came to the word God, or Savior, she cried out that she could not say it. Edith concealed her fears, and said, very quietly, "I will say it for you; and now, my child, go peaceably to bed, and pray to God to keep you from telling falsehoods." Phoebe was awed by her calm, decided manner, and, without further disturbance, went quietly to bed. Full of anxiety, and even terror, Edith sought her humble friend, told her the circumstance, and besought her to fly and conceal herself. She had provided the means for flight and concealment, and entreated her to use them before it was too late. "I do not fear for myself, my dear mistress," said Dinah. "If the child has such design, she has already formed her plan and already accused us; and she will not be content with accusing me; you are not safe. You do not know her hard and stubborn temper. She is like the young hawk in the nest of the dove." Seeing Edith was dreadfully alarmed, Dinah added, "Do not fear; we are in _his_ hand who feeds the young ravens, and numbers the hairs of our heads." Edith began to be a little more composed, when a loud knocking was heard at the door. Two men entered, well known to Edith; the officials in all occasions of this nature. One was the deacon of the church, a heated fanatic, full of religious bigotry, whose head was too weak to govern the passionate and blind motions of his heart. While he had been under the restraint of Mr. Grafton's calm, enlightened reason, he had been only a zealous and useful officer of the church; but now, that he considered his own light as no longer hidden under a bushel, his zeal burned out with more violence, and he lent himself to all the wild fanaticism of the time. The other was an old man, an elder in the church; with much tenderness of heart; but he was timid, and relied little on his own judgment, which was so little enlightened that he easily yielded to what he afterwards, when the delusion passed away, bewailed with bitter tears. Edith was perfectly acquainted with the characters of both. When she saw them enter, she turned deadly pale; but she pointed courteously to a seat, and placed herself instinctively between them and Dinah, to shield her, for she knew too well that there was no escape for her humble friend if once in their power. She felt, therefore, a sensible relief when she found that she was herself the object of their visit. Edith had had time to recover a little from her first consternation, and, with much self-possession, she asked who were her accusers, and demanded the right of being confronted with them. The men informed her that she would be taken in the morning to the meeting-house for examination, and then it would be time enough to know her accusers: in the mean time they should leave a guard in the house, to prevent all attempts to escape. Escape! ah, there was none for her. But Edith answered that she wished not to escape; that she should demand an examination. Alas! she knew not yet the spirit of the times. She was deluded by her own consciousness of innocence, and she thought fanaticism itself could not attach a suspicion to harmlessness like hers. Not so Dinah. She was seized with a terror and grief that, for one moment, shook her faith in God, and took away all self-possession. She knew that innocence, youth, piety, beauty, had been of no avail against the demoniac fury of the accusers. She besought, on her knees, and with floods of tears, her dear child--as, in her agitation, she called her--to avail herself of flight. She convinced Edith that they could easily elude the vigilance of their guard; that they could escape by water. Paul was an excellent boatman, the sea smooth as a mirror, the moon nearly full; they could reach Boston without suspicion. Or she would hide her in the woods: she herself knew a place where she could bring her food and clothing, and form a shelter for her, and keep her safe till all suspicion had ceased. It would have been better for Edith had she yielded; but her own clear reason, free from the mists of fanaticism, deluded her into the persuasion that, as nothing could appear against her, it would confirm the suspicions against her if she were to avoid by flight a full and open examination. Before they retired for the night, they kneeled down to pray. Dinah could not subdue her sobs; but Edith's voice was calm and firm as she asked the protection of the Father of the fatherless, and committed her poor friend to him who is no respector of persons. Dinah entreated her mistress to allow her to sit by her all night and watch, while she tried to sleep. This Edith refused: she wished to be alone. She had much to do to prepare herself for to-morrow, and she justly feared that Dinah's distress would soften her heart, and shake her firmness too much. As they passed through the chamber, Dinah bearing the candle, the little Phoebe, restless in her sleep, had nearly thrown herself out of bed. Edith stopped, and, bending over, replaced the bedclothes, and said softly to Dinah, "If to-morrow should be fatal, if I should not live to keep my promise to the old woman, I can trust her to you: you will be to her, as you have been to me, a mother; O, more than a mother?" She stopped; her voice choked. She removed the thick hair from the brow of the sleeping child, but even in sleep her face wore the frown that so often marred its beauty. "Dinah," she said, "she is yours; you will love her as you have me." "That I can never promise; but I will do my duty," said Dinah. Edith pressed her lips--thirsting as they ever did for a return of love--on the fair brow, and then, taking the candle from Dinah, entered her own room. Her heart was oppressed with apprehension, and she would not trust herself to say good night to her faithful servants. CHAPTER XV. "But ye! ye are changed since ye met me last: There is something bright from your features past; There is that come over your heart and eye, Which speaks of a world where the flowers must die. Ye smile; but your smile has a dimness yet: Oh! what have ye looked on since last we met?" THE VOICE OF SPRING. Before the events mentioned in the last chapter occurred, the winter had passed away, and the reluctant footsteps of our northern spring began to appear. The purple Hepatica opened her soft eye in the woods, and the delicate Sanguinaria spread her snowy bosom to catch the pale sunbeam. Already the maple-trees had hung out their beautiful crimson blossoms, and the thrilling note of the song-sparrow echoed through the forest. Then came the chilling wind from the east, its wings loaded with frost; and the timid spring hid her tender blossoms, and wrapped herself in a watery veil. The weather and the spring were unnoticed by Dinah, when she sought, soon after sunrise, the pillow of her mistress. The night had brought no rest to her throbbing temples and anxious heart: she was surprised, therefore, to find Edith still sleeping. She had sat up late, arranging her father's and her own papers, and providing, by a distribution of her little property, for the old age of her two faithful servants. They were no longer slaves; Mr. Grafton had given them freedom at his death. She left the little Phoebe under their guardianship. She had also written a letter to Seymore, to ask him to come and aid her by his counsel in this extremity. It was nearly dawn when she sought her pillow; and sleep, which has been called the friend of sorrow--"but it is the happy who have called it so"--had only for a few moments left her with untroubled dreams. Her sleep was not heavy; for the gentle footstep of Dinah awoke her. When she saw her humble friend's troubled expression, she tried to smile; and, stroking her dark cheek as she bent over her, she said, "We must look bright to-day, my poor Dinah, or they will think we are afraid." They prepared for the arrival of the officers; and, when breakfast was ready, the little Phoebe was not to be found. Although Dinah looked very grave, this occasioned no anxiety in Edith, when she recollected the vagrant habits of the child. After breakfast, which was indeed not tasted, the same persons who had visited her the night before came to conduct Edith to the meeting-house, the place of examination. The house was nearly full; and among that crowd there was scarcely one to whom Edith had not been a friend and a benefactor, as far as her humble means would allow. As she entered, there was one by whose sick bed she had watched; another whose infant had died in her arms; and children stood looking on with stupid wonder to whom she had given flowers, and primers, and, more than all, her own gentle smile. But now every eye was averted, or turned on her with suspicion and terror,--so hardening is the power of fanaticism. I believe I have said that my heroine was not beautiful; but the inward harmony must have given a spiritual beauty to features animated with intellect, and softened by tenderness of heart; and a self-relying innocence and purity imparted something more of grace to her person than the most finished art could have given. Edith became very pale as she entered; and Dinah, who had followed her closely, begged permission to stand near and support her. This was denied, and she was placed between two men, who each held an arm, and in front of those who were to examine her. The afflicted--that is, the accuser--was now called in. Edith looked eagerly around, and, with grief and astonishment, saw her little Phoebe, the child of her care, when almost close to her, utter a piercing cry, and fall down in violent convulsions. She started forward to assist and raise her, but the men drew her rudely back. And this was her accuser! At the same time with Edith, a poor old woman, nearly eighty years of age, was brought in. Her accuser was her own grandchild,--a girl about the same age as Phoebe. Together they had concerted this diabolical plot, and had rehearsed and practised beforehand their contortions and convulsions, excited, no doubt, by the notoriety of wicked children they had heard of. The poor old creature was bent and haggard. She would have wept, but, alas! the fountain of her tears was dried up; and she looked at her grandchild with a sort of stupid incredulity and wonder. Her inability to weep was regarded as an infallible proof of her guilt. As she stood beside Edith, she shook with age and terror; and Edith, touched with pity, though she trembled herself, and was deadly pale, tried to give her a smile of hope and encouragement. The poor old wretch did not need it: she not only confessed to every thing of which she was accused, but added such circumstances of time and place, and of the various forms the devil had taken in her person, that Edith almost sickened with disgust. She could not understand how an old person, on the very verge of the grave, could wish to lengthen out her few years by such base and wicked lies. The young cannot believe that the old are unwilling to die. But it is an acknowledged truth, that the longer we have worn our earthly vesture, the dearer becomes the thin and faded remnant. The young resign their hold of life with hardly a regret, while the old cling with the utmost tenacity to the wavering and nearly-parted thread. Edith turned away from the partner of her suspected guilt, and asked to have the child brought near her. She held out her hand, and looked mildly in her face. The moment the child touched Edith's hand, she was still: this was a part of the plot: but the moment her hand was withdrawn, she fell down again in violent convulsions, and cried out that pins were thrust into her. In the midst of this acting, she caught Dinah's stern, reproachful eye fixed upon her, and she instantly became still. But this did not aid poor Edith's cause; for they cried out that the child was struck dumb by the accused. The old woman also, feeling perhaps that Edith's integrity was a reproach to her own weakness, cried out that she was pierced with pins, and pinched by Edith, although with invisible fingers, as she stood near her; and, turning back her sleeve from her bony and wrinkled arm, she showed a discolored spot, which she declared had not been there when she left her home. It had not, indeed; but every one knows how quickly a bruise is visible in the stagnant blood of age, and the mark had been left by the hand of the person who held her arm. Edith, wearied and disgusted, desired to be taken back to her prison, there to await her trial before the judges of the Province. Every thing had occurred that was most unfavorable to her, and she felt but too well that she must bear the suspicion of a crime of which she was as unconscious as the unborn infant. Her heart yearned towards the poor infatuated child, and she earnestly begged that she might be permitted to talk with her alone. This was granted, and she was guarded to her prison. There was no proper prison in our village, and Edith was guarded in one of the rooms of the deacon's house who had been so active in her accusation. During the night that passed after her examination, Edith had time to arrange her thoughts. Before she knew who her accusers were, she had been moving in the dark; and now, when she thought of the whole insane proceeding, she could scarcely believe they would be guilty of the monstrous crime of condemning her on the testimony of that child alone. When the deacon visited her in the morning, she said, with much warmth, "Have the days of Queen Mary come back? Am I to be suspected, condemned, imprisoned, on the testimony of that poor child,--the child that I took to my home when no one else among you would offer her a shelter?" The deacon answered, "that the testimony was so much more convincing, as the child had lived in the house with her." "And is her word to be taken against the testimony of my whole life? You know how I have lived among you from my infancy." "Yes; but God may choose the fairest of his works as instruments of his sovereign will." "Have you forgotten my father?" said Edith,--"how he lived among you? He was ever your friend--always near you in every trouble. And myself"--she stopped; for she would not remind them of her deeds of kindness,--of the daily beauty of her life in their humble circle; nor would she recall her orphanhood, her unprotected state; but she looked down, and her eyes filled with tears. "God," she said, at length, "is the protection of the orphan; and he will avenge this great sin, and you will answer for it at his bar." The deacon looked sternly decided and unmoved, but he began to urge her to confess,--to do as others had done, and save her life by acknowledging the crime. Indignation kindled in Edith's eye; but she checked it, and said, "I cannot, I durst not, belie my own soul, and commit so great a sin. God, who is the searcher of my heart and your heart, as we shall both answer at the judgment day, is witness that I know nothing of witchcraft,--of no temptation of the evil one. I have felt, indeed--as who has not?--the temptations that arise from our own passions; but I know no other, and can confess no other." She then desired that Phoebe might be brought to her, and Dinah permitted to attend her in her prison. They consented that Edith should see the child in the presence of one witness; and the mild old man who was with the deacon said he would bring her himself. CHAPTER XVI. "I am constrained to declare, as the result of as thorough a scrutiny as I could institute, my belief that this dreadful transaction was introduced and driven on by wicked perjury and wilful malice." UPHAM'S LECTURE OX SALEM WITCHCRAFT. "Is there any cause in nature that makes these hard hearts?" LEAR. There seems sometimes to be an element of evil in the heart of a child, that would almost persuade us to believe in original sin. In the breast of those who have been favorably born and kindly nurtured, it may sleep forever; but, when the conscience has been soiled in early childhood, it awakes the appetite for sin, and the restraint that comes afterwards curbs without subduing the disposition to evil. It is true that poor Phoebe had felt a strong affection for her grandmother; and, without all other moral restraint, it was the only point in which her heart could be touched. The vagrant life she had led had also had its influence: "Happy because the sunshine was her dower," she could not always be insensible to the beauty of the heaven that had so often canopied her sleep, or the grandeur of the ocean where she had passed whole days playing with the waves. She rebelled against the restraint that every feminine occupation imposed on this wild liberty. She quailed, indeed, before Dinah's more resolute spirit; but Edith's gentleness had failed to touch her heart; and she knew that her forced obedience to Dinah was only the result of Edith's authority. When the child appeared, Edith held out her hand with her own grave, sweet smile; but, the moment the child saw her, she began again to act her part, and to throw her body and limbs into violent contortions. Edith was not alarmed: she saw it was feigned; and, drawing her to her knees, she held both her little hands tightly clasped in hers. Phoebe became instantly calm; but this was a part of the system of deception,--that, as soon as the accused touched the afflicted, they should be calmed and healed. Edith looked in her face, and said, very kindly, "Tell me, my poor child, who has persuaded you to do this wicked thing,--to accuse me of this horrible crime? tell me truly. I shall not be angry with you, I shall not punish you, if you tell me the truth. Who first spoke to you about it? What have they promised you for bringing this trouble on me?" The child, unmoved, said, "You yourself made me do it." "I! O, my poor Phoebe, how can you be so wicked as to tell this dreadful lie? Do you not know that God sees you and hears you, and that he will punish you for it? I may die: you may cause my death; but you will live to repent; and, O, how sorry you will be in after years, when you think how much I loved you, and you have caused my death! But, my poor Phoebe, you know not what you do; you know not what death is." "My grandmother died," said the child. "Ah, yes; but she died quietly in her bed, and you were sleeping near; and when I took you in my arms to look at her, you saw only her peaceful countenance. But I shall not die thus: I shall be dragged before angry men, and, with irons on my hands and ankles, I shall be lifted to the scaffold, and there, before hundreds of angry faces turned towards me, I shall die alone! not peacefully, as your grandmother did, when with my own hands I closed her eyes, but horribly, in pain and agony! and you will have done this,--you that I have loved so"-- Phoebe became very red, and the tears came to her eyes. Edith thought she had touched the child's heart, and continued: "I knew you could not be so wicked, so young and looking so innocent. No, my child; you love me, and you will unsay all you have said, and we will go home again together." The child answered, with much violence, "No, no, never! you pricked me with pins, and you tormented me." "O, monstrous!" said Edith; "if I could believe in devils, I should believe you were now possessed. O, it is not natural! so young, and with a woman's nature! You do not love me, then. I have punished you when you have done wrong, and you have not forgiven me: you wish to be revenged. You do not answer. Phoebe! tell me: are you angry that I punished you? God knows it pained me to do so. But your poor grandmother gave you to me that I might try to make you a good child; and if I had not punished you when you did wrong, you would have grown up a wicked woman. God grant you may not be so now! you are already revenged." Phoebe said, very sullenly, "You punished me twice." "Good God! and is it for that you have brought on me this terrible evil? Can such revenge dwell in so young a heart?" Edith walked several times across the room, trying to calm her agitated nerves. The child stood with an expression of obstinate determination in her whole manner. At length Edith went to her, and took her, as she had often done at home, in her arms. "My dear Phoebe, do you remember the day when your grandmother died? I was there by her bedside; and you, a poor, deserted child, were crying bitterly. I took you home to my house. Like myself, you were an orphan; and I prayed to the orphan's Father that from me your little heart might never know a pang of sorrow. You fell asleep in my arms; and since then I have ever loved you almost as though I were indeed your mother, and you were my own child. And you, Phoebe, you have loved me, have you not?" The child was silent. "Do you remember the fever you had soon after? when you were restless in your bed, and I took you in my arms, and all night my bosom was your pillow, and I watched you many nights, and thought not of sleep or fatigue when I held your little hand, burning with fever, in my own all night? Ah! you loved me then; you will love me again, and--" "I never loved you," said the child; "I do not love you now." Edith put her quickly from her arms, and turning to the man who was present, "Take her away," she said; "take the poor child away. O, my God! is it for this I have lavished on her the tenderness of my heart! I warmed her in my bosom, and she has stung me to the quick. O, had I been less indulgent, I might have subdued her stubborn nature. Of what avail has been a life of self-denial, of benevolence? Of what avail that I have striven to enlighten my own mind and to do good to others? In one moment, by that child of my own cherishing, but the creature of my own bounty, I am suspected of a horrible, contemptible crime; humiliated to the very dust. O, my Father! it is too much." She covered her face with her hands, and burst into tears. The person who had witnessed the scene with the child was the same elder I have mentioned as possessing much tenderness of heart, but too weak a head to listen to its dictates when opposed to the influence of others. He had been much affected by her appeal to the child, and came back to urge her, if she had any friends to espouse her cause, to send for them. He said the fanaticism was increasing; that the prisons in many villages were filled with the accused; that the hearts of the people were hardened against them; and that her own cause had been much injured by the confession of the old woman: and he ended by entreating her to confess also, and save her life. To the last proposal, Edith did not answer. She said she had already written to the only friend on whom she could rely, and that Paul had gone himself with her letter. Her cause, she said, seemed already lost, and all she wished at present was, that Dinah might be permitted to visit her, and that she might be left alone. When Edith was alone, she felt the depression that succeeds to great excitement. She looked back on her life with that sick and heart-broken feeling that the young experience after severe disappointments. She was too young to die; and, though her life had been comparatively blameless, the excess of feeling she had lavished on a few idols seemed now to her almost like a crime. She had forgotten, she thought, that her duties had been plain, and simple, and humble, lying all about her path like unnoticed flowers, while she had longed for something more exciting to fill her heart. It is easy for the accused to believe themselves guilty. She trembled when she thought how many, not weaker than herself, when suspected and deserted by friends, had yielded to their fears, and even fancied themselves _guilty_ of crimes which they abhorred; and she mentally prayed, "Ah, my Father, save me from myself." Then came the thought of Seymore, of his grief, his desolation! "Ah, who will understand him," she said; "who will comfort him when I am gone? But will he remember me?" thought she; "will he think of me in 'widowhood of heart?'" Who would die and be wholly forgotten? We long intensely to live in the hearts that love us now. We would not pass away "like the summer-dried fountain," forgotten when its sound has ceased. We would have our lowly grave visited by holy, twilight thoughts, and our image return at the hour of prayer. How few are thus remembered! Now Edith thought of her father, and all the yearning of her heart, which her love for Seymore had stifled, came back, and torrents of tears flowed as she recalled her happy childhood. They were checked by the entrance of Dinah. She brought comfort with her, and a cheerful countenance, for she did not know the result of Edith's conversation with the child, and she was full of hope that Phoebe would retract all she had said. Edith could not bear to undeceive her poor friend, and smiled, and thanked her as she arranged a nice, clean bed, placed the books she had brought within her reach, and pressed her to eat of the delicacies she had prepared. She arranged the little repast with all the neatness of home, and gave to the gloomy apartment an air of comfort; and Edith smiled again, and felt lightened of half her load of despondency, by the presence of this faithful guardian. CHAPTER XVII. "'T is past! I wake A captive and alone, and far from thee, My love and friend! yet fostering, for thy sake, A quenchless hope of happiness to be; And feeling still my woman's spirit strong In the deep faith that lifts from earthly wrong A heavenward glance." MRS. HEMANS. The next morning Edith was informed that Seymore had arrived. As soon as he received her letter he travelled with all the rapidity the state of the country permitted, when the journey from Boston to Salem was the affair of a day, as it is now of half an hour. From all we have learned of the character of Seymore, the reader will not be surprised to find that, although never taking an active part in the persecutions of the time, the character of his enthusiasm was such that he lent an easy faith to the stories he had heard of the possessed, and believed that God was manifesting his power by granting, for a season, such liberty to the prince of evil. When, however, he received Edith's letter, he felt pierced as it were with his own sword. He trembled when he thought of his almost idolatrous love, and with a faith which he fancied resembled that of Abraham, he believed the time had now come when he must cut off a right hand, and pluck out a right eye, to give evidence of his submission to the will of God. With this disposition of mind he arrived at the scene of our narrative. In the mean time the tender-hearted elder had become so much interested to save Edith, that he contrived to have Seymore placed on the jury, hoping that his deep interest in her would be the means of returning a verdict of _not guilty_. Seymore was therefore spared the pain of an interview with Edith, which would probably have convinced him of her innocence, before the trial. Edith awoke the next morning from a happy dream. She was walking with Seymore by the margin of the great ocean, and his low, deep voice mingled in her ear with the liquid sound of the dying wave. She awoke, a captive and alone: no, not alone, for the faithful Dinah was standing by her bedside, so tearful, so subdued, that the smile the happy dream had left on Edith's lips instantly faded. She remembered it was the day of her trial, and she prepared to meet it. These trials were held in the meeting-house, and were opened and closed with a religious service. This seems like a mockery to us, but our fathers thought they were performing a sacred duty; and however frivolous or disgusting were many of the details, the trial was rendered more appalling by giving to the whole the appearance of a holy sacrifice. Edith was far from being insensible to the terrors of her situation, but she found it necessary to assume a cheerfulness she did not feel, in order to soothe the dreadful agitation of Dinah. The poor African trusted in God; but she could not shield her child from the tyranny of human power. When Edith entered the thronged meeting-house, a paleness, like that of death, overspread her countenance. She requested that Dinah might stand near her to support her, lest she should faint. This was rudely denied. She was answered, "If she had strength to torment that child, she had strength to stand alone." She could not wipe the tears that gushed into her eyes at this cruel answer, for each hand was extended, and closely held by an officer,--a precaution always adopted in these trials, lest the prisoner should afflict some person in the crowded multitude. She had no sooner become a little calm, than her eye sought Seymore among the crowd. She was shocked with the change an "o'erwrought spirit" had effected in his person. His pale forehead was traced with veins that were swelled almost to bursting; a fire was burning in his dark, sunken eyes, and crimson spots flushed each cheek. As Edith looked at him, her heart swelled with an infinite pity. For the moment, her own appalling situation melted away from her thoughts. For the moment, it was of little importance to her whether she lived or died. All she wished was to be near Seymore, to speak to him, to soothe and calm his agitated spirit. She was recalled to herself by the opening of the trial. The prisoner was first commanded to repeat the Lord's prayer. This Edith did in a low, sweet voice, that sounded to the hushed audience like plaintive music. It is not my purpose to enter into the details of this trial. It is enough that "every idle rumor, every thing that the gossip of the credulous, or the fertile memories of the malignant could produce that had an unfavorable bearing on the prisoner, however foreign it might be to the indictment, was brought before the jury,"[3] in addition to the testimony of the child, and the falsehood of the old woman. [Footnote 3: Upham's History of Witchcraft.] The cause was at length given to the jury. They did not leave their seats; and when it came to the turn of Seymore, who was the last to speak, the crimson blood rushed to the cheek, brow, and temples of Edith, and then left them paler than before: a sick sensation came over her, and she would have fainted, had she not been relieved by tears, burning hot, that gushed from her eyes. Seymore had covered his face when he first entered, and had not looked at Edith. So hushed was the crowd, that the word "_guilty_," wrung as it were from him in the lowest whisper, was heard distinctly through the whole meeting-house. It pierced Edith's ear like the voice of a trumpet; and from that moment the spirit of a martyr entered her breast. She felt herself deserted by the whole of her little world, falsely convicted of a crime she abhorred, and left without human sympathy. She turned to God. "He who seeth in secret," she said, "knows my innocence;" and she bowed her head, and made no further answer. The trial was closed as it began,--with religious services. A hymn was sung; and Edith, feeling, as I have said, an elevation that she could not herself understand, joined in the devotion. The others stopped; for they would not mingle their voices with one convicted of witchcraft: the very evil one was mocking them. Edith continued alone; and her rich, sweet tones thrilled their hearts like the voice of an angel. She was reminded by a whisper from Dinah that she was singing alone; and, ceasing, she blushed deeply, and covered her face from the curious gaze of the multitude. As Edith returned to her prison, guarded on each side, and followed by Dinah, she thought of the Lady Ursula, whose cruel fate had moved her so deeply. And was she indeed the same person? The child that had wept her fate so bitterly was now to meet one far more terrible: and she felt strength to meet it. Every wave, as it had passed over her, had brought out the hidden beauty and strength of her soul; and, though there was in her no air of triumph, a tranquil contentment and repose was expressed in her whole person. CHAPTER XVIII. "No, never more, O, never in the worth Of its pure cause, let sorrowing love on earth Trust fondly,--never more! The hope is crushed That lit my life,--the voice within me hushed That spoke sweet oracles." The unnatural excitement that had borne our heroine up during the last part of her trial forsook her when she entered once more her dreary prison. She was again alone,--again a weak and timid woman. The momentary exaltation that a sense of injustice had given her when under the gaze of numbers, gave way to memories of the deep and unforgotten happiness she had connected with Seymore. All her sweet anticipations of soothing his spirit, of leading him to more rational views of God and of himself, faded away. In a few days, she would be no more, and remembered, perhaps, with pity or scorn. One last, lingering weakness remained: it was the fear of losing the respect and tenderness of Seymore. Like all who love deeply, she had dated her existence from the time she became acquainted with Seymore: all before had become a blank in her memory; but now her early years rose up before her, like the reflected sunlight on distant hills. The thought of her father came back with melting tenderness. Ah, now was he avenged for the short forgetfulness with which she had ever reproached herself. She threw herself on her knees, and prayed silently. She felt calmed and elevated, as if in immediate answer to her prayer. All selfish and agitating emotions passed away. A spirit of forgiveness, of endurance, of calm and patient trust, entered her soul. She felt that, with Seymore's convictions and sense of duty, he could not have acted otherwise; he could not but bear his testimony to what he thought truth; and almost a divine pity for his errors, and a purer love for his truth, filled her heart. She was informed that Seymore was waiting to see her. This was a trial she had expected, and she was now prepared to meet him. He entered trembling, pale, and wholly unmanned. As he tried to speak, his voice failed, and he burst into tears. It is fearful to see a strong man weep. Edith was not prepared for this excess of emotion. Those who have seen Retch's exquisite drawing of Cordelia when Lear awakes, and she asks "if he knows her," can imagine the tender pity of her expression as she went to him and placed her hand in his. A sweet smile was on her lips,--that smile that shows that woman can mingle an infinite tenderness with the forgiveness of every injury. He pressed her hand to his heart--his lips; and when he caught her eye,--"O, do not look so mildly at me," he said; "reproach me, scorn me, hate me: I can bear all rather than those meek eyes,--than that forgiving smile." "Be calm, dear Seymore," she said; "with your convictions, you could not have done otherwise. You believe in the reality of these possessions. The evidence against me was more and stronger than has been sufficient to condemn many as innocent as I am. You can have no cause for self-reproach." "Innocent! O, say not that you are innocent! God has many ways of trying his elect. You he has tried severely with temptations from the prince of evil. He chooses souls like yours. O, Edith, for my sake, for your own sake, acknowledge that you have been tempted. It only is required that you should say you have been deceived; then all will be well." For a moment, Edith's face was crimsoned. "What! become a traitor to my own soul! lose forever the unsullied jewel of truth, and the peace of a pure conscience! and do you counsel this?" "Many have confessed," he said, "many of undoubted truth, of ripe wisdom, who could not be deceived, and who would not confess to a lie."[4] [Footnote 4: "Fifty-five persons, many of them previously of the most _unquestionable character for intelligence, virtue, and piety_, acknowledged the truth of the charges that were made against them, confessed that they were witches, and had made a compact with the devil. It is probable that the motive of self-preservation influenced most of them: an awful death was in immediate prospect. The delusion had obtained full possession of the people, the witnesses, the jury, and the court. By acknowledging the crime, they might in a moment secure their lives and liberty. Their principles could not withstand the temptation: they made a confession, and were rewarded by a pardon."--_Upham's Lectures on Salem Witchcraft._] "But _I_ should confess to a lie,--a base and wicked lie. I have no faith in these temptations. I believe God suffers us to be tempted by our own passions and unrestrained imaginations, but not by visible or invisible evil spirits. O, listen to me: go no further in this mad, this wicked delusion. Spare the innocent blood that will be shed. If I must die, let my death be the means of turning you and others from this dreadful sin." "And can you bear to have your name sullied by this alliance with the wicked? Those who die as criminals are believed guilty of crimes; and can you consent to be remembered as the associate of evil spirits?" "Falsehood can live but a few years," she answered; "there is an immortality in truth and virtue. I cannot blush to be confounded with the guilty; for it is my unwillingness to sully my conscience with a lie that leads me there." Seymore was silent for a few moments. "Edith," he said at last, straining both her hands in his, "have you been able to think how cruel this death may be? Have you fortitude? Can you bear to think of it?" and he shuddered, and covered his face with his hands. Edith for a moment turned pale. "I have ever shrunk," she said, "from physical pain. My own extreme timidity has never given me courage to bear the least of its evils. I believe, then, that it will be spared me: God will give me courage at the moment, or he will mercifully shorten the pain; for what is beyond our strength we are not called to bear." "And can you part with life thus triumphantly?" "Ah, my friend, there is no triumph in my soul. In its deepest sanctuary, I feel that God will pardon my sins, and accept my death as in obedience to my conscience. But, O! I have not sought it: life is still sweet to me." "You shall not die,--you must not! you will not leave me! Edith, have you forgotten our moments of bliss,--our dreams of happiness to come,--the quiet home, the peaceful fireside, where we hoped to pass our lives together? Have you forgotten how long, how truly, how fervently, I have loved you? and is this to be the close of all?" Edith's hand trembled in his, but she answered cheerfully: "The close! ah, no: look upward. God has tried us both with grievous trials. Mine will cease first. Yours is the hardest to bear: to linger here--to do God's work alone. Let me be to you like one departed a little while before you, that would not be mourned, but remembered always." They were both silent for some moments; Seymore contending with unutterable regret, oppressed with an emotion that was almost the agony of remorse. Edith understood his contending emotions. "Think," she said, "that you have been the instrument of Providence to lead me to heaven. I do not regret to die early: God has permitted me to solve the mystery of life. I see his hand even from the moment when that child was committed to my care. Thank God, I can now submit to his will; and, although life were sweet with you, my death may bring you nearer to heaven." "Edith," he said at last, "I have been deceived. Such faith, such divine forgiveness, such noble fortitude, cannot be the work of evil spirits. Your faith is purer and stronger than mine,--your reason more enlightened. I have erred, dreadfully erred." A bright smile illumined her face, and she pressed his hand in hers. "I have done most dreadfully wrong," he said; "I sinned from ignorance." "God will forgive you," said Edith; "and I,--I cannot forgive, for I could not blame." He started up. "It is not too late to repair this dreadful evil: it will be easy for you to escape. If I cannot gain a reversion of the sentence, we can escape: we will leave this country of delusion and error; we will go home--to England. There, O Edith--" The blood for a moment rushed to Edith's cheek and brow; but she answered, sadly, "No, Seymore, it cannot be; after all that has passed, it would ruin your character, your prospects, your usefulness, forever. We are too weak to stem, to oppose this mad delusion. Bigotry and power are all around us." "You hesitate. Ah, you do not love me as you did;" and he became again violently agitated. Edith took his hand in hers, and pressed it to her lips. "Tempt me not," she said, "with visions of happiness that can never be. Let us rather pray to God to support us in this bitter hour." They bowed their young heads together, and their tears mingled. Edith's silent prayer was wholly for him. True to her woman's nature, she forgot herself in his deeper sorrow. He was calm, and Edith would not prolong the interview; and Seymore left her all the more hastily as he was determined to employ every means to save her. He was not permitted to enjoy that happiness. CHAPTER XIX. "See, they are gone!-- The earth has bubbles, as the waters have, And these are some of them. They vanished Into the air, and what seemed corporal, Melted as breath into the wind." SHAKSPEARE. When Edith was alone, she felt that weakness and exhaustion of the body that all the painful excitements of the day had produced. She threw herself on the bed, and Dinah was soon at her side. "Sing me one of the hymns you used to sing in my happy childhood; perhaps I may sleep." Dinah sat by the side of the bed, and Edith laid her head on the breast of her faithful friend, while she began in a tremulous, low tone, that became stronger and clearer as the holy fervor of the hymn inspired her. Edith lay motionless, but between her closed eyelids the large tears forced themselves, and fell slowly down her cheeks. At length, like a tired infant, she slept. Dinah laid her head gently on the pillow; with the tenderest hand, wiped away the tears; drew the covering over her; with noiseless step excluded the light, and then sat down to watch by her. It was the bitterest hour poor Dinah had ever passed. She tried to pray, but she found submission impossible. She had had many trials. She had been torn from her native land, chained in a slave ship, exposed for sale in the slave market; but since she had been a Christian, she had blessed her various trials. Now her faith in God seemed entirely to fail. She took, as she had often done to comfort her, the cool, soft hand of her mistress in hers. It was now burning hot, and her own tears, as they fell, seemed to scald her. But just at that moment a thought darted into her mind, and she has often said that it was a direct inspiration from God. "I will save her!" was the thought. The blood rushed to her head and face, and then retreated again to the heart; she trembled, and, for the first time in her life, the poor African was near fainting. She fell on her knees: "Yes, God help me, I will save her." The operations of the mind at such moments are rapid as lightning; and, in a few moments, her plan was arranged. When Edith awoke and saw the change a few moments had wrought in Dinah's appearance, the light that shone in her eye, and her cheek "flushed through its olive hue," she feared, for an instant, that great anxiety and grief had shaken her reason. "My poor Dinah," she said, taking her hand in hers, "you are ill; you are feverish; you have been too long shut up in this dismal room with me. Go out, I pray you, and take the cool evening air, and I will try to sleep again." It was what Dinah wished, for she desired to consult Paul; but she busied herself with all those little nameless attentions that love alone can devise. As she was folding her mistress's hair for the night, Edith said, "Dinah, I can escape this dreadful death that awaits me." "O, my dear mistress, how?" said Dinah, her whole face quivering with emotion. "With a lie! by confessing that I have tormented that poor child, and that I am myself possessed by evil spirits." Dinah drooped again. "You could not do that," she said; "no, you could not dishonor yourself with a falsehood: but if you could escape without violating your conscience, would you not?" "Certainly," answered Edith: "if God were to place the means of escape within my reach, I would make use of them, as I would use the means to recover from a fever. I should violate no law, for the proceedings against me were unjust, and the testimony false. I could not yield to Seymore's desire that I should escape, because his was one of the voices that condemned me, and he could open my prison door, if at all, only by an open and honorable confession of his error." Dinah trembled with joy at hearing Edith speak thus of her willingness to escape, could it be effected with truth; but she would not hint at her hopes till she had arranged her plan with the assistance of Paul. After a pause, Edith said, "Alas, there is no hope of escape: and why do you fold my hair so carefully? it will never delight your eyes more." Dinah answered, "Never despair: I see a light behind the cloud: the morning is breaking." Dinah consulted Paul, and the plan they concerted together was not difficult to execute. Edith, after long entreaty, yielded to the affectionate creature, and the more readily, as she knew Dinah was so great and universal a favorite in the village that no evil could befall her. After having her complexion darkened with an herb which Dinah had prepared, Edith exchanged clothes with her humble friend; and at night Dinah remained in the prison, while, with infinite precaution, she eluded the observation of the one person who had been placed at the door to guard her. Paul was secreted without, and the trembling Edith, without being observed, found shelter and concealment in the ruined hut of Phoebe's grandmother. Paul, as I have said before, was an excellent boatman. Soon as the first streak of dawning light appeared, secretly and in silence, he dipped his oar into the water. The beautiful morning star shone alone in the sky, and as the shore melted away, Edith strained her eyes to catch the outline of her happy home, and the little mound where her parents reposed. They reached a place of safety, and Edith was soon made happy by hearing of the safety of her affectionate and humble friend. It is well known that this fearful delusion of our country ceased as suddenly as it had risen. Edith was one of the last of the accused. When it was discovered that she had escaped, no inquiries were made, and no regret expressed. "The curtain had fallen, and a close was put to one of the most tremendous tragedies of real life. The wildest storm, perhaps, that ever raged in the moral world, instantly became a calm. The tide that had threatened to overwhelm every thing in its fury sank back, in a moment, to its peaceful bed." What could have been Seymore's emotions when the cloud had vanished, and he stood in the clear sunshine of reason? Happy he was indeed, inexpressibly happy, that his beloved Edith had escaped the most dreadful consequences of this mad delusion. Whether their union ever took place, I must leave to the imagination of my readers. The young who have never had their hearts stirred with a deeper love than that for a pet lamb, or a canary bird, will reject the thought as impossible. The old, if any who have passed the age of thoughtless amusement should condescend to read these pages, perhaps will judge otherwise. Having learned from that severe teacher, experience, how prone we are to err, and how often we need forgiveness from each other, as well as from Heaven; having found, also, that the jewel of true love, though sullied by error, and sometimes mixed with baser stones, yet, like the diamond, can never lose its value,--they will cherish the belief that Seymore found, in the devoted affection of Edith, a balm for his wounded spirit, and an unfailing strength for the duties and trials of life. THE END. 
20722	----	A Little Girl in Old Salem * * * * * THE "LITTLE GIRL" SERIES A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD NEW YORK. HANNAH ANN; A SEQUEL. A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD BOSTON. A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD PHILADELPHIA. A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD WASHINGTON. A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD NEW ORLEANS. A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD DETROIT. A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD ST. LOUIS. A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD CHICAGO. A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD SAN FRANCISCO. A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD QUEBEC. A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD BALTIMORE. * * * * * A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD SALEM by AMANDA M. DOUGLAS [Illustration] New York Dodd, Mead and Company 1908 Copyright, 1908 by Dodd, Mead and Company Published, September, 1908 CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I TWO LETTERS 1 II THE LITTLE GIRL 19 III A STRANGER, YET AT HOME 36 IV UNWELCOME 52 V MAKING FRIENDS WITH THE LITTLE GIRL 68 VI GOING TO SCHOOL 91 VII CHANGEFUL LIGHTS OF CHILDHOOD 108 VIII SORROW'S CROWN OF SORROW 128 IX LESSONS OF LIFE 143 X A NEW DEPARTURE 161 XI THE VOICE OF A ROSE 180 XII CHANGES IN THE OLD HOUSE 194 XIII A TASTE OF PLEASURE 213 XIV IN GAY OLD SALEM 231 XV LOVERS AND LOVERS 248 XVI PERILOUS PATHS 270 XVII THE FLOWERING OF THE SOUL 288 XVIII THE PASSING OF OLD SALEM 296 CHAPTER I TWO LETTERS The Leveretts were at their breakfast in the large sunny room in Derby Street. It had an outlook on the garden, and beyond the garden was a lane, well used and to be a street itself in the future. Then, at quite a distance, a strip of woods on a rise of ground, that still further enhanced the prospect. The sun slanted in at the windows on one side, there was nothing to shut it out. It would go all round the house now, and seem to end where it began, in the garden. Chilian was very fond of it. He always brought his book to the table; he liked to eat slowly, to gaze out and digest one or two thoughts at his leisure, as well as the delightful breakfast set before him. He was a man of delicate tastes and much refinement, for with all the New England sturdiness, hardness one might say, there was in many families a strain of what we might term high breeding. His face, with its clear-cut features, indicated this. His hair was rather light, fine, with a few waves in it that gave it a slightly tumbled look--far from any touch of disorder. His eyes were a deep, clear blue, his complexion fair enough for a woman. His father and grandfather had lived and died in this house. He had bought out his sister's share when she married, and she had gone to Providence. He had asked the two relatives of his father--termed cousins by courtesy--to continue housekeeping. They were the last of their family and in rather straitened circumstances. Miss Elizabeth was nearing sixty, tall, straight, fair, and rather austere-looking. Eunice was two years younger, shorter, a trifle stouter, with a rounder face, and a mouth that wore a certain sweetness when it did not actually smile. Chilian was past thirty. He was a Harvard graduate, and now went in two days each week for teaching classes. His father had left some business interests in Salem, rather distasteful to him, but he was a strictly conscientious person and attended to them, if with a sort of mental protest. For the rest, he was a bookworm and revelled in intellectual pursuits. The day previous had been desperately stormy, this late March morning was simply glorious. The mail, which came late in the afternoon, had not been delivered, causing no uneasiness, as letters were not daily visitors. But now the serving-man, with a gentle rap, opened the door and said briefly: "Letters." Eunice rose and took them. "An East Indian one for you, Chilian, and why--one from Boston--for you, Elizabeth. It is Cousin Giles' hand." Elizabeth reached for it. They were both so interested that they took no note of Chilian's missive. She cut carefully around the big wafer he had used. It was a large letter sheet, quite blue and not of over-fine quality. Envelopes had not come in and there was quite an art in folding a letter--unfolding it as well. "Really what has started Cousin Giles? I hope no one is dead----" "There would have been a black seal." "Oh, yes, m'm;" making a curious sound with closed lips. "They are well. Oh, the Thatchers have been visiting them and are coming out here for a week--why, on Saturday, and to-day is Thursday. Chilian, do you hear that?" "What?" he asked, closing his book over his own letter. "Why, the Thatchers are coming--on Saturday, not a long notice, and I don't know how many. They have had a nice time in Boston--and Cousin Giles has been beauing them round and seems to like it. He might have sent you word on Tuesday, when you were in;" and Elizabeth's tone expressed a grievance. "And the house not cleaned! It's been so cold." "The house is always clean. Don't, I beg of you, Cousin Bessy, turn it upside down and scrub and scour, and wear yourself out and take a bad cold. There are two guest chambers, and I suppose half a dozen more might be made ready." "That's the man of it. I don't believe a man would ever see dirt until some day when he had to dig himself out, or call upon the women folks to do it." Elizabeth always softened, in spite of her austerity, when he called her Bessy. The newer generation indulged in household diminutives occasionally. "Well, there is to be no regular house-cleaning. We shall want fires a good six weeks yet." "I don't see why Cousin Giles couldn't have said how many there were. Let me see, Rachel Leverett, who married the Thatcher, was your father's cousin. They went up in Vermont. Then they came to Concord. He"--which meant the head of the house--"went to the State Legislature after the war. He had some sons married. Why, I haven't seen them in years." "It will be just like meeting strangers," declared Eunice. "It's almost as if we kept an inn." Chilian turned. "When I am in Boston to-morrow I will hunt up Cousin Giles." "Oh, that will be good of you." He slipped his letter into the Latin book he had been going over, and with a slight inclination of the head left the room. The hall was wide, though it ended just beyond this door, where it led to the kitchen. The woodwork was of oak, darkened much by the years that had passed over it. The broad staircase showed signs of the many feet that had trodden up and down. Chilian's study was directly over the living-room, and next to the sleeping-chamber. This part had been added to the main house, but that was years ago. Bookshelves were ranged on two sides, but the windows interfered with their course around, two on each of the other sides. There was a wide fireplace between those at the west, and under them low closets, with cushions--ancestors of useful window-seats. A large easy-chair, covered with Cordovan leather, another curiously carved with a straight narrow strip up the back, set off by the side carving. The seat was broad and cushioned. Then one from France, as you could tell by the air and style, that had been in a palace. A low splint rocker, and one with a high back and comfortable cushions, inviting one to take a nap. The bookcases went about two-thirds of the way up and were ornamented by articles beautiful and grotesque from almost every land, for there had been seafaring men in the Leverett family, and more than one home in Salem could boast of treasures of this sort. Chilian stirred the fire, sending a shower of sparks up the chimney, and put on a fresh log. Then he settled himself in his chair and fingered his letter in an absent way. The last time Anthony wrote he vaguely suggested changes and chances and the uncertainty of life, rather despondent for a brisk business man who was always seeing opportunities at money-making. Had he been unfortunate in some of his ventures? And it was odd in him to write so soon again. Not that they were ever frequent correspondents. He opened the letter slowly. It was tied about with a thread of waxed silk and sealed, so he cut about the seal deliberately; he had a delicate carefulness in all his ways that was rather womanly. Then unfolding it, he began to read. Was this what the previous letter had meant? Was Anthony Leverett nearing the end, counting his days, finishing up his earthly work, and delegating it to other hands? There was something pathetic in it, and the trust in the uprightness and honor that Anthony Leverett reposed in him touched him keenly. But this part surprised and, at first, annoyed him. He drew his fine brows in a repellent sort of frown. "Do you remember, Chilian, when you were a lad of eighteen, in your second year at Harvard, you came to Salem to recruit after a period of rather severe study? And you met Alletta Orne, who was four-and-twenty and engaged to me. In some sort of fashion we were all related. Your father had been like a father to me in my later boyhood. And, with a young man's fervor, you fell in love with her. I was sorry then for any pain you suffered, I am glad now; for there is no one else in the wide world I would as soon trust her child and mine to. "We had been away nearly three years, when we came back, and the baby was born in the house endeared to me by many tender recollections. You were away then, but on our second visit we were the most congenial friends again. I did not think then it would be our last meeting. I had meant, after making my fortune, to return and end my days in my birthplace. My greatest interest was in the commercial house I had established. My first mate, John Corwin, took my place and sailed the vessel. Then my dear wife died, and I had only my little girl left. "I could hardly believe six months ago that I must die. Should I return, or remain here and sleep beside the one who had filled my soul with her serene and lovely life and her blessed memory? I could not endure the thought of leaving her precious body here alone. So I chose to remain. And now I send my little girl to your care and guardianship without even consulting you. She is amply provided for, though the business this side of the world cannot be settled in some time. I send her with a trusty maid and Captain Corwin, because I do not want her to remember the end. Some day you can tell her I am sleeping beside her dear mother and that we are together in the Better Land. She has been separated considerably from me of late,--I have had to be journeying about on business,--therefore it will not come so hard to her, and though children do not forget, the sorrow softens and has a tender vagueness from the hand of time. "So I give my little girl to you. If so be you should marry and have children of your own, she will not be crowded out, I know. In the course of years,--for girls grow rapidly up to womanhood,--she may love and marry. Direct her a little here and see that no one takes her for the mere money. I want her to know the sweetness and richness of a true satisfying love." All important papers, and a sort of diary Anthony Leverett had kept, were to come in the vessel that would bring the little girl in the charge of Captain Corwin. Chilian Leverett sat for a long while with the letter in his hand, until the log broke in the middle and one end fell over the andiron. Then he started suddenly. Had he been dreaming of the sweetness of the woman who had so captivated his youthful fancy, almost a dozen years agone? He never thought she had led him astray, and had no blame for her. Perhaps the love for her betrothed had so permeated her whole being that she shed an exquisitely fascinating sweetness all about. He was to her as if he had been her betrothed's younger brother. And when the engagement was confessed he allowed himself no reprehensible longing for the woman so soon to be another's. All his instincts were pure and high, perhaps rather too idealized, though there was much strength and heroism in the old Puritan blood. Right was right in those days. Lines were sharply drawn among those of the old stock. But there had been years of what one might call living for self, indulgence in studious habits and tastes and the higher intellectual life, much solitary dreaming, although he was by no means a recluse. And to have a little girl come into his life! He would have liked a boy better, he thought. The boy would be out of doors, playing with mates. And now he bethought himself how few small children there were in his branch of the Leverett line. Some of the men and women had not married. His brother and one sister had died in childhood. The first cousins were nearly all older than he, many of them had dropped out of life. A little girl! No chance to decline the trust--well, he would hardly have done that. He knew Anthony Leverett had counted on a serene old age in his native town. And he was not much past middle life. What had befallen him? Well, there was nothing to be done. He read the letter over again. Then he turned to some papers to compose his mind. There was a stir in the next room, his sleeping-chamber. He always opened the windows and closed the door between. After the dishes were washed and the dining-room and hall brushed up, Elizabeth came upstairs and made the two beds. When he had gone to Cambridge she opened the door between. So she did not disturb him now, but crossed the hall and inspected the two guest-chambers. She had swept them a week or so ago and had settled in her mind that they would do until house-cleaning time. To be sure, if she cleaned them now they would need it when the guests were gone. And Chilian had a man's objection to house-cleaning. It was hardly time to put away blankets. She wished she knew how many guests there would be. The rooms were full of old Colonial furniture that had been in the family for generations. Every spring Elizabeth polished the mahogany until it shone. She dusted now, though there was hardly a speck visible. The snow through the winter had laid it, and the spring rains had not allowed it to rear its head. Chilian put on his coat presently and sallied out for his morning exercise. The family had been connected with shipbuilding to a certain extent, and there was the old warehouse where vessels came in with their precious cargoes from civilized and barbaric lands. For at the close of the Revolutionary War the men of note, many of whom had not disdained privateering, found themselves in possession of idle fleets, that with their able seamen could outsail almost anything afloat. So they struck out for new ventures in unknown seas and new channels of trade. Calcutta, Bombay, Zanzibar, Madagascar, Batavia, and other ports came to know the American flag and the busy enterprising traders. But the old Salem that was once the capital of the state, the Salem of John Endicott and Roger Williams, of stern Puritanism, of terrible witchcraft horrors, and then of the sturdy and vigorous stand in her differences with the mother country, her patriotism through the darkest days, was fast fading away, just as this grand commercial epoch was destined to merge into science and educational fame later on, and give to the world some master spirits. But as he wended his way hither and thither in a desultory fashion, one thought almost like spoken words kept running through his mind--"A little girl--a little girl in Old Salem"--for the almost two hundred years gave her the right to that eminence, and a little girl from a foreign land seemed incongruous. Not but that there were little girls in Salem, but their life-lines did not touch his. And this one came so near, for the sake of both parents he had loved. When he came in to dinner, he had made up his mind to say nothing of his letter until the guests had come and gone. He did not wish to be deluged with questions. He hunted up Cousin Giles the next day, who was quite a real-estate dealer, investing his own and other people's money in sound mortgages, who had been a widower so long that he had quite gone back to bachelorhood. And he found three Thatcher cousins--a widow, a married one, and a single one, the youngest of the family, but past girlhood. He was asked to take luncheon with them and they proved quite agreeable and intelligent, and much pleased at the prospect of seeing Elizabeth and Eunice Leverett. "We have been hunting up several of the Boston relatives," said Miss Thatcher, with a kind of winsome smile. "Cousin Giles has been a good directory. We've kept in with so few of them. Father hunted up some of them while he was in the Legislature, but they are so scattered about and many of them dead. Mother was your father's cousin, I believe." Chilian gave a graceful inclination of the head. "Elizabeth and Eunice visited us years ago, along after the war when I was first left a widow," explained Mrs. Brent. "Henry went all through it, but was worn out, and died in '88. But I've two nice sons, who are a great comfort. Father was very good to them and me. And they're both promising farmers." "I tell her that's a good deal to be thankful for," remarked Cousin Giles. "It is indeed," commented Chilian. "And I have a lad who is all for study and wants to come in to Harvard. He has been teaching school this winter. His father's quite set against it, and I don't know how it will end. He will be only nineteen in August, and his father thinks he has a hold on him two years longer." Mrs. Drayton looked up rather appealingly. "If his mind is made up to that, he will work his way through," said Chilian, and he thought he should like to know the boy. "You see the next two are girls and they can't help much about a farm. Father really needs him. And I seem to stand between two fires. His teaching term will end in May, but he has planned to take the school next winter. He has made quite a bit of money." Chilian thought he would be a lad fully worth helping, and made a mental note of it. He liked the mother. It was settled that they would reach Salem about noon in the stage, the only mode of conveyance, and they parted with a pleased friendliness. Chilian rehearsed the interview at home to the great delight of the household. Indeed, he had been very well pleased with the prospective visitors and he felt rather thankful for the respite from the shadow the coming event was casting. A little girl! It did annoy him. He did not allow it to interfere with his duties as host, however. The three ladies had a most delightful visit at Salem, looking up points of interest and hearing old history concerning the Leveretts. Chilian's father had jotted down many facts. There were seafaring uncles, who had brought home trophies; there were men in the family, who had died for their country if they had not filled eminent positions; others who had. How this branch of the family seemed to have dwindled away! Serena Thatcher was more than pleased with her cousin, though she felt somewhat awed by his attainments and his rather punctilious ways. Mrs. Brent set him down as a good deal of a Miss Nancy. But the ladies had a delightful time going over family histories and getting relationships disentangled. When the eventful day of parting came it brought a very real sorrow. They made promises that they would renew their meetings and keep each other in mind. It was Saturday evening when the Leverett household sat around the cheerful fire in the cozy room where the small family gathered on this evening of the week with their work all done, after the fashion of the past, still strictly observed by many of the older Puritan families. The industrious ladies sat with folded hands. Sometimes Chilian read aloud from a volume of the divines who had finished their good fight. This night he was gazing idly in the fire, the lines in his face deepening now and then. "I suppose he _is_ tired with all the talk, and rambles, and confusion of the week," Elizabeth thought, stealing furtive glances at him. He straightened himself presently and made a pretence of clearing his throat, as an embarrassed person often does. "I have something to tell you," he began. "I thought I would not disturb you while our relatives were here. We found enough to talk about;" with a short half-laugh. "And it tired you out, I know. We live so quietly that such an event quite upsets us," Eunice said in a gentle, deprecating tone. "It was very pleasant," he added. "I was a good deal interested in Anthony Drayton. But this is something quite different. Can you recall that I had a letter from the East Indies the morning the word came from Cousin Giles?" "Why, yes!" Elizabeth started in surprise. "I had really forgotten about it. Business, I suppose, with Anthony Leverett. Why, I think it is high time he came home." Chilian sighed. "I am afraid--though I cannot see why we should fear so much to enter the other portal, since it is the destiny of all, and we believe in a better world. He was hopelessly ill when he wrote and was winding up some business matters. He is a brave man to meet death so composedly. The only pang is parting from his child." "Oh, his little girl! Let me see--she must be eight or nine years old. What will become of her?" "He makes me executor and guardian of the child. She was to start three weeks after his letter with Captain Corwin in the _Flying Star_. That will be due, if it meets with no mishap, from the middle to the last of April." "But she doesn't come alone!" ejaculated Elizabeth in surprise. "Yes. He wishes to be buried there beside his wife. And he does not want her to have the remembrance of his death. So he sends her with the woman who has been her nurse and maid the last three years, an Englishwoman." "Of all things! I wonder what will come next! We seem in the line of surprises. And it's queer they should happen together. A little girl! Chilian, do _you_ like it? Why, it will fairly turn the house upside down!" There was an accent of protest in Elizabeth's tone, showing plainly her unwillingness to accept the situation. "One little girl can't move much furniture about;" with a sound of humor in his voice. "Oh, you know what I mean--not actually dragging sofas and tables about, but she will chairs, as you'll see. And lots of other things. Look at the Rendall children. The house always looks as if it had been stirred up with the pudding-stick, and Sally Rendall spends good half her time looking for things they have carted off. Tom and Anstice were digging up the path the day we called, and what do you suppose they had! The tablespoons. And I'll venture to say they were left out of doors." "There are so many of them," Chilian said, as if in apology. "And I don't see how we can keep this child away from them. It isn't as if they were low-down people. Sally's father having been a major in the war, and the Rendalls are good stock. Let me see--what's her name? Her mother was called Letty." "Cynthia. She was named for my mother." Chilian's voice had a reverent softness in it. "I always thought it a pretty name," said Eunice. "And I've heard people call it 'Cyn.' I do abominate nicknames." Elizabeth uttered this with a good deal of vigor. Then she remembered she quite liked Bessy. No one spoke for some moments. Chilian thought of the sister, whose brief married life had ended in her pretty home at Providence, and how she looked in her coffin with her baby sheltered by one arm. The picture came before him vividly. Elizabeth liked cleanliness and order. It was natural after a long practice in it. Chilian's particular ways suited her. Year after year had settled them--perhaps she had settled him more definitely, as he liked the way. Eunice was thinking of the little girl who had neither father or mother. She had some unfulfilled dreams. In her youth there had been a lover, and a wedding planned when he came home from his voyage. She had begun to "lay by" for housekeeping. And there were some pretty garments in the trunk upstairs, packed away with other articles. The lover was lost at sea, as befell many another New England coast woman. She had hoped against hope for several years--men were sometimes restored as by a miracle--but he never came. So she sometimes dreamed of what might have been, of home and children, and it kept her heart tender. Anthony's little girl would make a sight of trouble, she could see that, but a little girl about would be a great pleasure--to her at least. She glanced furtively at Elizabeth, then at Chilian. She could not comfort either of them with this sudden glow and warmth that thrilled through her veins. "Well, we will be through with house-cleaning before she comes," said the practical and particular housewife. Chilian simply sighed. It was the usual spring ordeal, and did end. But who could predict the ending of the other? CHAPTER II THE LITTLE GIRL Down at the wharf there was much bustle and stir. Vessels were lading for various home ports, fishing craft were going out on their ventures, even a whaler had just fitted up for a long cruise, and the young as well as middle-aged sailors were shouting out farewells. White and black men were running to and fro, laughing, chaffing, and swearing at each other. There lay the East Indiaman, with her foreign flag as well as that of her country. She had come in about midnight and at early dawn preliminaries had begun. Captain Corwin had been ashore a time or two, looking up and down amid the motley throng, and now he touched his hat and nodded to Chilian Leverett, who picked his way over to him. "We are somewhat late," he began apologetically. "A little due to rough weather, but one can never fix an exact date." "All is well, I hope;" in an anxious tone. "Yes; the child proved a good sailor and was much interested in everything. I was afraid she would take it hard. But she is counting on her father's coming. I don't know how you will ever console her when she learns the truth." "And he----" Chilian looked intently into the captain's eyes. "I suppose the end has come before this. They thought he might last a month when we left. It's sad enough. He should have lived to be ninety. But matters went well with him, and he has been an honest, kindly, upright man with a large heart. I've lost my best friend and adviser." The captain drew his rough coat-sleeve across his face and looked past Chilian, winking hard. "There's a sight of business when we come to that, Mr. Leverett, but now--will you go on board? The maid is a most excellent and sensible person. They are in the cabin." "Yes," he answered and followed with a curious throb at his heart--pity for the orphaned child and a sense of responsibility he was conscious that he accepted unwillingly, yet he would do his duty to the uttermost. Already some officials were on hand, for at this period Salem was really a notable port. Chilian passed them with a bow, followed the captain down the gangplank, stared a little at the foreign deck-hands in their odd habiliments, stepped over boxes and bales in canvas and matting full of Oriental fragrance that from the closeness was almost stifling, coming from the clear air. Then he was ushered into the cabin, that was replete with Orientalism as well. A rather tall woman rose to meet him. "This is Mistress Rachel Winn, who has mothered the little girl for several years, Mr. Leverett, her relative and guardian, and--Cynthia----" The child threw herself down on the couch. "I want to go back home. I want to see my father, and Aymeer, and Babo, and Nalla. I can't stay here." "But perhaps your father will bring them when he comes. Don't you remember he told you he lived here when he was a little boy, and what nice times he had with the cousin he loved? And the cousin is here to bid you welcome. Come and speak to him. We cannot go back at once, the ship has to unload her cargo and take in ever so many other things. See, here is Cousin Leverett." She sat up, made a forward movement as if she would rise, but simply stared. "Yes, I am Cousin Leverett." He began advancing and held out his hand. "And very glad to see such an excellent traveller as you have been," said the captain. "And such a nice little girl. You are an American girl; you know your father told you that. And this is your native town. Cousin Leverett remembers you when you were very little." "But I don't remember you;" taking no notice of the proffered hand. "Then you must get acquainted with me. And you must tell me about your life and your father, whom I have not seen in a long, long time. Let us shake hands." She held out hers then and raised herself to her feet. "Oh, how soft your hands are," she cried, "just like Nalla's. But they are very white. Nalla's were brown." "And who was Nalla?" "She used to come and play with me and make chains out of shells, and make bracelets and anklets, and dance. And she used to go to the Sahibs' house and dance with snakes. I'm afraid of them. Are you?" "Indeed I am, of the large ones," he said at a venture. He fancied that he felt a gentle pressure of sympathetic approval. She glanced up for an instant and her eyes transfixed him. They were a deep wonderful blue, almost black at the pupil, then raying off a little lighter. It made him think of a star in the winter midnight sky with a halo around it. The lashes were long and nearly black. Otherwise she had little claim to beauty just then. Her complexion had a tawny hue made by sun and wind, her hair was light, but it had a peculiar sunburned tint, though it was fine and abundant and hung in loose curls about her shoulders. Her nose was the only Leverett feature--it was straight, rather small, and had the flexibility that betrayed passing emotions. The Leverett lips were thin, hers were full in the middle, giving a certain roundness to the mouth. "Are there any where you live?" hesitatingly. "Any?" Then he recalled the subject they had touched upon. "Oh, no; you seldom see them, and they are mostly harmless." "Have you any little girls in your house?" "No, I am sorry to say." "There were two little English girls on shipboard at first. They went on board another vessel after a while. I liked them very much. They knew a great many things about countries. I can read, but I don't a great deal. Sometimes father would tell me about America. There are a great many countries in it, and once they had a big war. They had wars, too, in India. Why must people kill each other?" "There seem to be reasons. A little girl could not understand them all, I think;" and how could he explain them? "Oh, there is Captain Corwin!" She flew across the cabin with outstretched arms, which she clasped about him. "Well, have you been getting acquainted with--he will be your uncle, I suppose. What title are you going to take with the child, Mr. Leverett?" Chilian Leverett colored, without a cause he thought, and it annoyed him. "Are you going back to India to-day?" She was not interested in Chilian Leverett's answer. Captain Corwin laughed heartily and patted her shoulder. "Not to-day, nor even next week. The cargo will have to be taken off, little missy, and a new one stowed away. And I fancy there must be some repairs. I shall stay in town and run down to Marblehead. So you will see me quite often." "And you are coming back again from India?" "Oh, I hope so. More than once." "You will bring father then. It is such a long while to wait;" and she sighed. The men exchanged glances. "I want to see him so much. Couldn't I go back with you?" "Don't you remember I told you the other evening he might start before I reached India again? Don't you want to go ashore and see Salem? Ask Miss Rachel to get you ready." Rachel was beckoning to her. "Let us go up on deck," she said. "It's a strange country to me as well as to you. And I fancy the men want to talk." She crossed the cabin slowly, not quite certain what she did desire most, except to see her father. "You will have a rather sorry task. But Captain Ant'ny would have it so. He wanted to feel that she would be among friends. He had the fullest confidence that you could manage wisely. There is a great box of papers, instructions, etc. You are appointed her guardian and trustee. I've brought boxes of stuff that the officers will have to go through. But the legal matters you may take with you. He tried to make it as easy as he could. She will have considerable of a fortune, and more to come when matters get settled on the other side. A cousin of the Bannings came out,--English are great hands to keep things in the family. But it is one of the biggest importing houses out there and it owes its success to the long and wise head of Captain Anthony. They want young Banning in it and the matter was about settled when we came away, but the payments will run over several years. All these papers will be sent to you. The Bannings are upright business men, and I think you need have no fear. But the child's fortune is to be invested on this side of the water. Oh, you cannot realize what a trial it was to give up all thoughts of ending his days here." Captain Corwin brushed some tears from his honest, weather-beaten face. "But if he had started earlier----" "He would not believe the trouble would prove fatal. And when it was declared there was so much to put in order. Then he could not bear to think of leaving his wife alone there, though it's only the shell after all, and, if we believe the Good Book, we shall see the real part over there that was so much to us. But he could not explain the parting to the child, though death is such a common thing out there. Yet it _is_ hard to believe our own can die. We are never ready for that. How you will manage----" The customs officers had come. Captain Corwin went out to meet them. Chilian Leverett dropped into the well-worn leather-covered chair that had been fine in its day. A heavy burthen had been laid upon him. He was not fond of business. Cousin Giles might be of some assistance; he grasped at the thought as if he had been a drowning man and this the straw. And the child, somehow, was different from the average child, he felt; though he was not certain what the average child would unfold day after day. What would Elizabeth think? Eunice he could count on. Though she yielded on many points in that tacit sort of way, she was by no means an echo of her sister. The three men entered the cabin. Chilian was no stranger to the officials, who greeted him cordially and who sympathized with Captain Anthony Leverett's untimely ending, as he was hardly past middle life. "Why, it will be quite a change to have a child in your household," said Josiah Ward. "But if she is like mine, I advise you not to give her the run of your study. But there are two ladies to look after her;" and he smiled. It was surmised that Mr. Ward, a widower of two years' standing, had glanced more than once in the direction of Miss Eunice Leverett. Rachel came back at this juncture. The little girl had an accession of shyness and would only nod to the strangers. Then they made ready to leave the vessel. Chilian took his japanned case of important papers; the rest of the luggage would be sent after inspection. A primitive street it was in those days, and the fine wharves of the present were rather rude if busy places. Over beyond they could see the river,--South River,--and that was alive with various small craft. "It seems almost like home," said Rachel Winn, pausing to take a survey. "You do not find this rural aspect in India." "How long were you there?" asked Chilian. "Seven years. I went out with my brother, who had just married my dearest friend. He died the third year, and she soon after married a military man. Then I took charge of a little lame boy and was mostly up in the mountains until he was sent to England, when Captain Leverett's hospitable doors opened to me. Believe me, I was sorry to leave him at this crisis. Yet it was his wish;" and she glanced at Cynthia. "Why did we come away?" demanded the child passionately. "Oh, Rachel, are you sure father will come? It takes so long, so long;" and there were tears in her voice. "Here we are!" exclaimed Chilian. There was a white picket fence across the sort of courtyard that had a broad paved path leading up to the front door, bordered by shrubs that would presently be in bloom, and spaces between for smaller plants. This was the delight of Eunice's heart. A square but rather ornate porch, with fluted columns, supporting the outer edge of the roof, and an elaborately carved hall-door with a fanlight overhead. The stoop stood up some five steps, and at the sides there were benches for out-of-doors comfort on summer nights. A brass knocker, with a lion's head, announced visitors. Chilian, however, let himself in with his latchkey. But both sisters met the party in the hall. "And this is Anthony's little girl!" said Elizabeth. "Child, let me look at you----" But the child had a perverse fit at that moment and turned away her head, to the elder's surprise and almost displeasure. "This is Miss Winn," interrupted Chilian. "My household guardians and cousins, Miss Elizabeth and Miss Eunice Leverett. I dare say our guests feel strange to be on land, after such a long journey." "It seems almost incredible that one can stand it, but we see them starting every few days for distant ports. My farthest journey has been to Providence; but, land alive! you don't know where that is, and it's no great distance. Will you not come and have a cup of tea or coffee?" "Thank you. We had breakfast not long ago, it seems." "Let me take you to your room," said Eunice. "And I hope you will soon feel at home with us. We are quiet people, but we shall endeavor to make you comfortable. Cynthia, will you not shake hands with me?" The soft, rather pleading voice attracted the child. She glanced up shyly and then held out a tiny hand hesitatingly. "She is rather backward at first," explained Rachel, who followed the hostess up the broad stairway. One of the guest-chambers had been set aside for their use after much discussion as to whether one or two would be needed. A smaller one opened into this, and a large closet was at the side. "You can take off your things--I suppose your boxes, or whatever you have, will be here presently. The bureau is empty and this chest of drawers. We are rather old-fashioned people, and the house is the same as it was in the time of Chilian's father. The captain made one visit here, when the little girl was about four. It must have been hard for him to lose his wife in a strange country like that. I suppose there are not many Americans?" "No; there are numbers of Englishwomen, wives of soldiers and traders, though I think most of them long to get home. They do not seem to take root easily." "I shouldn't think they would, in that idolatrous country. The accounts of heathendom are appalling. And that car of Juggernaut, and drowning their poor little babies! They do not seem to make much of girl children." "Indeed, they do not, only as in some families they are wanted for wives. But the devotion of mothers to their sons is wonderful." Rachel had laid aside a silk coat that filled Eunice with a sort of wonder, being brocaded with beautiful leaves and roses that seemed as if they must have been worked by hand, they stood out so clearly. The child appeared fantastically attired to her plainer eyes, and her slim arms were weighted with bracelets. In her dainty ears were some splendid sapphires. "I do hope you will soon feel at home," Eunice said from a full heart, if there was a rather awkward feeling about it. Yet she liked Miss Winn's face. It had a kindly and intelligent aspect and was medium in all respects. The social lines in the town, indeed in all the Eastern towns, were not sharply defined as to mistress and maid. True, many households preferred black servants; in not a few some elderly relative looked after the household, or a bound-out girl was trained in industrious ways. There had been some discussion as to what sphere this Miss Winn would occupy. If she was simply the attendant on an over-indulged child, an uneducated person, as many of the English maids were who came over to better their conditions or get husbands, it might be rather awkward. But the woman was certainly well-bred and used her English in a correct manner. "Perhaps you will get to feeling more at home if you come down to the sitting-room, since there is nothing to unpack;" with a faint smile. Cynthia had been looking out of the window. "How queer it all is!" she said. "I think I do not quite like it. And how funny one feels. I want to go this way;" and she swayed from side to side. "The motion of the vessel," interposed Rachel. "I have heard it took days to get over it." Meanwhile, downstairs Elizabeth had studied her Cousin Chilian. "The child is not at all pretty," she began rather sharply. "And her mother was considered a beautiful young woman, I believe." "Yes; but a long voyage and shipboard living may not be conducive to the development of beauty. And children seldom are at that age." "The Goodell children are pretty, I am sure, with their fine complexions. And the Bates girls. She has a furtive sort of look. Oh, I hope she isn't deceitful and untrue. Those heathen nations, I believe, are given largely to falsehood, and she has lived among them so long without any mother's care. It seems as if a pretty girl like Alletta Orne might have found some one at home to marry and reared her child in a Christian land." "Do not let us begin by borrowing trouble. It always comes fast enough." "And I can foresee that we shall have plenty of it. Well, I suppose it must be endured. There! my bread is light enough to go in the oven--running over, likely as not." So, when they came downstairs, Miss Elizabeth was in the kitchen, immersed in her baking interest. A large gray cat lay curled up on a cushion. Cynthia went straight over to it, but it glanced at her with wild eyes, jumped down, and disappeared through the doorway. "Oh!" she exclaimed in accents of disappointment, glancing up at Chilian. "Pussy is not used to children. He always runs away from them. But I think he will like you when he gets acquainted." She turned to the window with a swelling heart. It seemed so cold and strange. It was better on shipboard, she thought. She had come to know the sailors quite well and Missy had grown to be a great favorite with them. There was always something cheerful going on. They sang songs in their loud clear voices, or whistled merry tunes. They danced as well. She was quite used to the dancing-girls at Calcutta, and when they were at Hong Kong or other ports. But the Indian girls pleased her best. The sailors seemed always full of fun, even in the worst of times. During some fearful storms she was safely housed in the cabin, and it amused her to see the things pitch and roll as far as their chains would allow them. Sometimes, too, they had to hold the food in their hands, but she never knew the danger of the worst storms. Rachel would not admit that she was afraid, and the captain said, "Yes, we're having a stiff blow, but the _Flying Star_ has weathered many a gale before." And here it was so very quiet. It looked dreary outside, with the leafless trees. She liked the toss and tumult of the waves with their snowy, jewelled crests, and the clouds scudding along the sky, which she imagined was another sea full of ships. Often they went in port and there was nothing left but the blue sky above--a great hollow vault. And when the sun shone the real sea and ocean was in flames of such splendid colors. There was no end of curious people at ports where they stopped for supplies, there was always something strange, even when they were days alone on the water. For the sunset and sunrise were never twice alike. Then the moon from its tiny crescent to the great round globe that illumined the world with her fairy richness and scattered jewels on every crested wave. She had watched it turn the other way and grow smaller and smaller until you saw it vaguely in the morning. She was so interested in the stories they told about it, the signs and wonders they ascribed to it. "And was it ever a real world like that we have left behind?" she asked of the captain. "Were there people in it? And land, and rivers, and growing things, and flowers?" and her wondering eyes grew larger. "No one can tell now. Some astronomers believe it a burned-out world and the things we take for a man," laughing, "and the cow ready to jump off, are remnants of roads, and forests, and mountains." "You _can_ see the man in the moon," she returned decisively. "Sometimes he laughs. And the cow has great horns. I should be afraid of them if I met such a cow. Ours are so small and tame." "You will see large ones in Salem. But I think, for the most part, they are gentle." She never wearied talking over the strange things. And so she came to have her head filled with wonderful lore that indeed cropped out now and then all her life long until she felt as if she had really been in fairyland. It seemed stranger here than on shipboard. The others were going through the ceremony of getting acquainted. Rachel Winn's voice had a soft sound, with an almost foreign accent. Eunice's, though low-pitched, had a clear resonance. Now and then Chilian Leverett made a comment, or asked a question, but she was not heeding them. Her heart and mind had wandered back to her father and that wonderful land where nothing ever seemed bleak, though in long hot droughts it was arid. But there were always temples, and palaces, and picturesque huts, and women and children in gay attire, old men kneeling somewhere, praying but keeping a sharp lookout for alms. Chilian Leverett had been watching the small face and wondering at the changes passing over it. Now he saw some tears slowly coursing down the pale cheeks, and his heart was moved with infinite pity. Suddenly a robin alighted on the limb of a tree and began picking at the buds. Then he held his head up straight, swelled out his brownish red breast, and poured forth such a volume of melody that the effort fairly made him dance with joy. Spring had surely come! It was the time of love and joy, and all things made over new. She turned a trifle. Her face was transfigured with delight. Her eyes shone, though the tears were still wet on her cheek. CHAPTER III A STRANGER, YET AT HOME Rachel Winn settled herself to the new order of things more readily than the Leveretts. Or rather she seemed to take the lead in arrangements for herself and her charge. She was after all a sort of nurse and waiting-maid, though she had a fine dignity about it that even Elizabeth could not gainsay. She was to be one of the family, there could be no objection to that in the simple New England living. Though it was true, times were changing greatly since the days of war and privation, and perhaps the mingling of people from other states, the growing responsibility of being part of a great commonwealth. Servants were being relegated to a different position. Boston in a certain fashion set the pace, though Salem held up her head proudly. Were not her seaports the busy mart of the Eastern shore? Stores of finery, silks and laces, and marvellous Indian embroidery went down to Boston and the houses were enriched with choice china that in the next hundred years was to be handed down as heirlooms. Fine houses were being built, choice woods came from southern ports by vessels that believed they could find fortunes nearer home than China or India. But they could grow no spices, or coffees, or teas, and they must come from the Orient. No looms could turn out such exquisite fabrics as yet, though housewives were to be proud of their home-made drapery for a generation or two. Chilian spent a large part of that first night inspecting his box of papers. There was a journal-like letter in which Anthony Leverett had jotted down many things he hardly dared say in his letter; indeed, there was not sufficient space. As soon as he had learned the serious nature of his disease, he had begun to put his house in order and consider the future welfare of his child. Some lines touched Chilian deeply, the trust and dependence he was not at all sure he could fulfil, but he felt he _must_ rouse himself to the earnest endeavor. The father had a passionate love for his child, he was making a fortune for her, counting the years when he should return and have a home of his own, when Cynthia would grow up and marry and there would be grandchildren to climb his knees. India was no place for a woman child to grow up in, there were no chances for education or accomplishment, and next to no society. After all there was not, and never would be, such a country as the new world that had struggled so long and bravely for her independence, and now had only to go on developing her grand theories. Crowned heads might look on doubtingly, but the foundation had been laid in justice and truth and equality of right. It quite thrilled him that this man, amassing money in a far-away land, could see so clearly and have no doubts about its future greatness. To Captain Corwin, his good, trusty friend, he had willed half the value of the _Flying Star_. The money from his part was to be invested, as the payments came in, in real estate in Salem, which was to be the shipping mart of the New England coast, at least, and run a race with New York, he thought. So with the stations at Calcutta and Hong Kong in the hands of the Bannings. And there were treasures that would answer for a wedding dowry when the time came. If possible, he would like Rachel Winn retained; he had the highest confidence in her, and she had no relatives to call her back to England. He had given her much of the family history, and described the town and the people, so that it would not seem so new and strange to her. He was not asking all this as a favor. Chilian was touched by the provision made for himself, which it would be quite impossible to decline, he saw. True it would break in upon his leisurely, student life, yet he felt he could not in honor refuse to accept the trust. Rachel Winn studied the arrangements of the rooms at their disposal. Her young mistress was not a child taken out of benevolence or relationship. She must have her standing from the very beginning, and she fancied Elizabeth was inclined to consider her a sort of interloper. "If it makes no difference, I will take the small room," she announced to her. "There are some pieces of furniture on the vessel that Captain Leverett particularly wished her to keep, and as she grows older she will cherish them----" "That great room for such a child!" In her amazement, Elizabeth spoke without thought. She was not used to seeing children set in the very forefront. In her day, indeed, yet in some families the large open garret was considered the place for children. "You see, she was used to it at home--over there, I mean;" with a nod of the head. "Her father's room was one side, mine on the other. Of course, in a way I shall share it with her. I will keep it in order and look after her clothes, and sew for her. But I prefer the smaller one." Elizabeth was aghast. One of the best spare chambers, with the furnishings that had come from England a hundred years before. On the other side she and Eunice shared a plainly appointed room with some of their very own belongings. There was still another, but the closet was small. She had asked Chilian where they should be placed and he had chosen this. It was his house, of course---- Whether it would have ended in a discussion could not to be told, for at that moment a dray drove up with some boxes and a piece of furniture so wrapped and protected that it was quite impossible to guess at its name. Chilian came out and ran lightly down the stairs; and then called Elizabeth. "Where had the boxes better go? They will have to be unpacked, I suppose;" helplessly. "There are more to come," announced the man. "Enough to set up housekeeping, if the right sort of things are in them;" and he gave a short laugh. Miss Winn came downstairs. "Isn't there a garret to the house?" she asked, looking from one to the other. "I packed them up, but I can hardly tell----" "Yes; we could store half the vessel's contents in it. Well, not exactly that. A ship's hold is a capacious place. Yes, the boxes might go there. Have you any idea what this is?" "A sort of desk and bookcase. A very handsome thing the captain set great store by." The men shouldered the boxes and Elizabeth convoyed them. Silas was spading up the garden and came at the call. It was a work of some labor to get the article out of its secure casings. It disclosed a very handsome piece of furniture in the escritoire style, carved and inlaid not only with beautiful woods, but much silver. Chilian surveyed it with admiration. "That must stand in the parlor," he decided. "But some one must come and help. I'm afraid I am not sufficiently robust. Silas, see if you can't find the Uphams' man. He was working there a short time ago." "If there's more to come, it is hardly worth while to clear up," began Elizabeth. "I hope it will soon follow." Chilian directed the two men, who found it still quite a burthen. Elizabeth opened the parlor shutter unwillingly, and the men set it in the middle of the floor. There were two large rooms held almost sacred by both sisters. They were separated by an archway, apparently upheld on each end by a fluted column. Both rooms had a wide chimney-piece, the mantel and its supports elaborately carved and painted white. Two windows were in each end, draped with soft crimson curtains. The floor was polished, with a rug laid down in the centre. It was furnished in a manner that would have delighted a connoisseur, but Elizabeth did not admire the conglomeration. They were family relics and seemed to have little relation with one another, yet they were harmonious. There was a thin-legged spinet, with a Latin legend running across the front of the cover, which was always down. The chairs were not made for lounging, that was plain; and the sofa, with its rolling ends and claw feet, had been polished until the haircloth looked like satin. A dead and gone Leverett bride had imported that from London. When the East Indian article had been consigned to an appropriate space, it looked as much at home as if it had lived there half a century. Then the parlor was shut up again, the mat in the hall shaken out, the front door bolted. Miss Winn had asked for a hammer and chisel that she might open one of the boxes. "Take Silas. That is a man's work," said Chilian. Cynthia was in the sitting-room, where it was still chilly enough to have a fire. Eunice was knotting fringe for a bedspread, and it interested the child wonderfully. She was not a little shocked to find a child of nine knew nothing about sewing, had never hemmed ruffles, nor done overseam, or knit, or it seemed anything useful. "Why, when I was a little girl of your age I could spin in the little wheel." "What did you spin?" "Why, thread, of course, linen thread made from flax." "Were you a truly little girl?" in surprise. "Why, child, don't you know anything?" Then Miss Eunice laughed softly and patted the small shoulder, looking kindly into the wondering eyes. There was no hurt in her tone and the words rather amused. "I know a great many things. I can read some Latin, and I know about Greece and its splendid heroes who conquered a good deal of the world. There was Alexander the Great and Philip of Macedon. And Tamerlane, who conquered nearly all Asia. And--and Confucius, the great man of China, who was a wise philosopher, and wrote a bible----" "Oh, no; not a bible!" interrupted Miss Eunice, horrified. "There is only one Bible, my dear, and that is the Word of God." "But the other is the bible of the Chinese, and some of them believe Confucius was a god." "That is quite impossible, my dear;" in a rather decisive, but still gentle tone. "And there is Brahma, and Vishnu, and there are ever so many gods in India. The people pray to them. And temples. When they want anything very much, they go and pray for it. There was a woman whose little son was very ill, and if he lived he was going to be a great prince, or something, and she gathered up her precious stones and her necklace and took them to the temple for the god. Father sent an English doctor, but they wouldn't let him see the little boy. He was so pretty, too. I used to see him in the court." "And did he live?" Miss Eunice asked, much interested. "No; he didn't. And the father beat her for losing the jewels." "You see, those gods have no power." "Did you ever pray for anything you wanted very much?" Cynthia's bright eyes studied the placid face before her. "Yes," the lips murmured faintly. "And did you get it?" A flush stole over the puzzled countenance. "My dear, God doesn't see as we do. And He knows what is best for us, and gives us that. Maybe our prayer wasn't right." "How can you tell when a prayer is right or wrong?" inquired the young theologian. "Why, you have to leave that to God;" in a low, resigned tone. "I didn't want to come here. I wanted to stay with father. I didn't know there was any one beside, and I do not believe any one will ever love me so well. But he promised to come when the business was all done. So I prayed to the God of father's Bible, and I went to the temple with Nalla and put down a half-crown--it was all the money I had. But"--her eyes filled with tears and her voice had a break in it--"father begged so, and I came. But if Captain Corwin does not bring him next time I shall go back. I can't live without him." The mild blue eyes of Miss Eunice filled with tears as well. She was not sure this had been the wisest course. The absolute truth was always best. But she temporized also in a vague fashion. "Yes; you can tell then. And you may come to like us so well you may stay content." "Oh, if he comes! Then it will be all right. And you think I ought to pray for that?" It was a cruel strait for Miss Eunice and staggered her faith. She was not to lead astray or harm "one of the least of these." But the child _was_ a heathen with no real knowledge of the true God. Like a vision almost, Miss Eunice looked back at her own childhood, and the awful, overshadowing power she believed was God, who wrote down every wicked thought and wrong deed, and would confront her with them at the Judgment Day. She prayed nightly, often in the night, when she woke up, and she was no surer of God's love than this little heathen child. "It is right to pray for the things we want, but to be resigned if God doesn't see fit to give them to us." "Then the prayers are thrown away. And do you know just what God is?" "My dear!" in a shocked tone, "no one can tell. It is one of the mysteries to be revealed when we see Him as He truly is at the last day. A little girl cannot understand it. I do not, and I have sought the truth many years. Now I am trusting, because I feel assured He will do what is right. Tell me something about your life with your father." "Oh, things were so different there. Houses, and there were always servants, so you didn't ever need to fan yourself. Babo and Nalla were always about. Babo used to take me out in a chair that had curtains around and a big umbrella overhead. Sometimes Chandra went with him. And the streets were funny and crooked, and houses set anywhere in them. I liked going up in the mountains best, it wasn't so hot. And the trees were splendid, and beautiful vines and flowers of all sorts. Mrs. Dallas went the last time. She had two girls and a big boy. I did not like him. He would pinch my arms and then say he didn't. I liked the girls, one was larger than I. And we swung in the hammocks the vines made. Only I was afraid of the snakes, and there are so many everywhere. Alfred liked to kill them." She shuddered a little and glanced about the room with dilated eyes. "They come into your houses sometimes. Nalla used to catch them and sling them hard on the ground, and that stunned them. And we used to make wreaths of the beautiful flowers. Agnes Dallas knew so many stories about fairies, little people who come out at night, when the moon shines, and dance round in rings. They slip in houses, and the nice ones do some work, but the wicked ones sour the milk, and spoil the bread, and hide things. And, sometimes, they change children into a cat, or a rabbit, or something, and it is seven years before you can get your own shape again. Do you have them here?" "There is no such thing. That is all falsehood," was the decisive comment. "But--Agnes knew of their coming. And she had seen them dancing on the grass. But if you speak or go near them, they disappear." Miss Winn came out to the sitting-room. "Oh, you are here," she said. "I thought you were out of doors. You ought to take a run. What a wonderful garret you have upstairs, Miss Eunice. But I am afraid we shall fill it up sadly. There were so many things to bring. I do not believe we shall find use for half of them. I want a few mouthfuls of fresh air. I suppose I can walk up the street without danger of getting lost if I turn square around when I return? Don't you want to come, Cynthia?" Cynthia was ready. "You had better wrap up warm. It gets chilly towards night." "It was a long stretch on shipboard. We stopped at several ports, however. But I am glad to be on solid ground. Come, child." She had brought down a wrap and hood. Cynthia was glad of something new, though she liked Miss Eunice. They turned a rather rounding corner and went on to a sort of market-place, where sweepers were gathering up the débris after the day's sales. They glanced about the city. Salem had made rapid strides since the grand declaration of peace, but at the end of the century it was far from the grandeur the next twenty years would give it. "There are no palaces and no temples," said Cynthia, rather complainingly. "And how white all the people are. Do you suppose they have been ill?" "Oh, no; they have been housed up during the winter, and the climate is cold. And, you know, they are of a different race. This part, New England, was settled mostly from old England." "Are you going to like it, Rachel?" "Why--I don't quite know. You can't tell at once about a strange place." "Miss Eunice is nice. But she has some queer ideas." "Or is it a little girl, named Cynthia Leverett, who has queer ideas that she has brought largely from a far-off country?" The child laughed. Then she saw some girls and boys playing tag in the street, laughing and squealing when they were caught, or when they narrowly missed. And some empty carts went rattling by, with now and then a stately coach, or a man on horseback, attired in the fashion of the times. The sun suddenly dropped down. "We had better turn about," declared Miss Winn. "It will not do to be late for supper." The walk had not been straight, but her gift of locality was good. They passed the market-place again, made the winding turn, and found the lighted lamps gave the house a cheerful aspect. Miss Eunice had put away her knotting and begun to lay the cloth when Elizabeth entered, her face clouded over. "I'm sure I don't see why Providence should send this avalanche upon us to destroy our peace and comfort," she began almost angrily. "The Thatchers' visit was pleasant, though that made a sight of clearing up afterward. And we had hardly gotten over that when this must happen. I was going to put that white quilt in the frame, but the garret will be turned upside down for no one knows how long! Such a mess of stuff, and more coming. There's enough in this house without any more being added to it." "But it was natural Captain Anthony should want his child to have something belonging to him, maybe her mother, too. And goodness knows there's room enough in the garret. It isn't half full with his traps, and there's some of ours. And there's the loft over the kitchen." "Well, we want some place to dry clothes in rainy weather. And when I sweep I want to move things about, not sweep just in front of them, and have the dust settle in rows behind. Chilian didn't know what a lot there would be, though he might have looked it over on the ship. When it is all through, the house will need a thorough cleaning again. And what _do_ you think, Eunice! She's going to put the child in that big bed and she sleep in the little one! The best room in the house! I'm sorry they have it." Eunice was roused a little. "That doesn't seem the proper thing. But maybe she thought--I do suppose the child has had the best of everything." "I don't believe in pampering children. And I don't altogether like the woman. I do wonder if we will have to keep her. A girl of nine is old enough to look after herself, and begin to keep her own clothes and her room in order." "It's been very different out in India. And I do suppose Anthony was over-indulgent, she having no mother to train her." "We'll have our hands full, Eunice, when the tussle really begins." "Oh, I do not think she will be hard to manage. She seems rather shy----" "Those eyes of hers ain't so deep for nothing. She hasn't the Leverett mouth, and those full lips are wilful and saucy, generally speaking. Letty Orne was a pretty girl, as I remember. Strange, now, when you come to think of it, that the child should have been born in this house. But she'll never have any beauty to spare, that's certain. For the land sakes, Eunice, look at the time and you dawdling over the table. I'm tired as a dog after a long race." Elizabeth dropped into a chair. In her secret heart Eunice knew that when her sister was tired out she was fractious; she loved her too well to say cross words. "Shall we have fish or cold meat?" she asked mildly. "Oh, I don't care! Well, fish. There will be meat enough for to-morrow's dinner if it isn't meddled with." The fish was salted down in the season, soaked a little, laid in spiced vinegar for a few hours, cut in thin slices, and was very appetizing. Eunice went about with no useless flutter, she stepped lightly and never made any clatter with dishes. The tea china, thin and lovely, the piles of white bread and brown, molasses gingerbread and frosted sugar cake, stewed dried fruit and rich preserves, made an inviting-looking table. Chilian came in and made himself neat, as usual, then the guests. Cynthia was very quiet. Twice Miss Winn answered a question for her. She scarcely ate anything. Then she said wearily: "I am so tired and sleepy. Can't I go to bed?" CHAPTER IV UNWELCOME Miss Winn and her charge went down to the ship the next morning with Chilian Leverett. Elizabeth inspected the rooms. She was not meddlesome, nor over-curious generally, but with a feeling of possessorship and responsibility in the house, she wanted to know how far she could trust the newcomers. The beds were well made, but closets and drawers were rather awry. She did begrudge the best chamber, and wondered whether it would not be possible to change them about presently. True, they seldom had guests. Then a new load of boxes came, with two trunks, and several more pieces of furniture. The latter were left standing in the hall. The garret had been a sort of fetich with Elizabeth. There were dried herbs hanging to the rafters in their muslin bags, so as not to make a litter and mostly for the fragrance. There was not a cobweb anywhere. On one side of the sloping roof were ranged their own trunks and chests, two of cedar, in which woollen clothes and blankets passed the summer, securely hidden from moths. In one gable were miscellaneous household articles, a few chairs good enough to be repaired, a more than century-old cherry table, spinning-wheels, a bedstead piled high with a feather bed, and numberless pillows, for Elizabeth thought it her duty to make a new pair every year, as they kept a flock of geese that spent their days in a small cove on South River. The interloper boxes could make a row down the cleared side. That left the centre, the highest part, clear for drying clothes, which probably would not be needed until winter. But careful Elizabeth planned ahead for every emergency. True, the emergency did not always fit the plans, but it gave her tense spirit a rest. The Salem air was fragrant, with all manner of sweet springtime odors--the ship was not. Things that had been stored in the hold came up with a certain old smell and a little mustiness. First, Cynthia held her nose and made a wry face. But it was delightful to run about and exchange greetings with the sailors, who seemed merry enough over their work. "Well, missy," said the captain, catching her in his arms as she ran, "how do you like living on dry land? You haven't lost your sea legs yet, that's plain." "It's very queer. There are just tiny leaves coming out on the trees, and a few curious white flowers, little bells, coming up in the garden, and crocus in pretty colors. But I don't like it very much. Miss Eunice is nice and has such a soft voice. And the houses are so funny and shut up, and there are no servants about, nor any one praying on the corners and holding out a basin for rice; and no piles of fruit for sale." "No; this isn't the time of year for fruit;" and there was a funny twinkle in the captain's eye. "Just wait until August and September." Cynthia considered. "That is three and four months away. Father will be here then;" with a child's confidence. "And there are berries earlier, and cherries, and then some sugar pears. Oh, you will be feasted. And you'll like Cousin Leverett, when you come to get acquainted with him. You will go to school, too, and know lots of little girls. You won't want to go back to India." "Unless father shouldn't come. Oh, he surely will, because, you see, I'm praying ever so many times a day." "That's right;" with a cheerful nod. "When are you going back?" "In about a month, I calculate." She sighed and looked out over the great stretch of waters. "What is that long point down there?" she asked suddenly. "That's Salem Neck, and there is Winter Island. They are always building ships down there and turn out some mighty fine ones. And fishing; there's a sight of cod, and haddock, and mackerel, and all the other fish in season. They salt them and take them half over the world. And there's a rope-walk you'd enjoy seeing, leastways you would if you were a boy. And there are some stores. We have lots of goods consigned to the Merrits. Salem's a big place, now I tell you!" "Bigger than Calcutta?" "Sho' now! Calcutta can't hold a candle to it." The captain's cabin was being dismantled for repairs and cleaning. She glanced in it. How many days she had spent here! Everything was in disorder, yet there was a certain home remembrance that touched the child's heart, and brought tears to her eyes. "Oh, are you here?" It was Chilian Leverett's voice, and he held out his hand. She looked so bright now and there was a little color in her cheeks, an eager interest about her. He was afraid she was going to be a rather dull child. "Yes; it's almost like home, you know; only when we lived here it wasn't so topsy-turvy." "Did you feel queer when you woke up this morning?" thinking it his duty to smile. "Oh, I didn't know where I was. It seemed as if I was being smothered in something. And it didn't toss and rock. Oh, there were some birds singing." She laughed gleefully. "Then I saw Rachel, and it came to me in little bits, but it seems such a long, long while since yesterday morning." "Where is Miss Winn? I want to see her a moment." "She has been looking over some things as they came up from the hold," said the captain. "Oh, here she is!" Chilian took her aside for a moment. It was necessary for him to go in to Boston and he wanted to make a few suggestions, so that any of Elizabeth's strictures might not offend. He began to perceive the child and her attendant were not exactly welcome guests. "How long do you suppose she will stay?" Elizabeth had asked of him rather sharply. "For, when we are once settled, I do not think there will be any real necessity for keeping Miss Winn." She had been considering it at intervals through the night, and was impatient for what she called an understanding. Chilian had often given in to her on points that did not really affect him. He hated to bicker with any one, especially women. "My dear Elizabeth," he began, "the child has been consigned to my charge until she comes of age. I should not have chosen the guardianship, but it seems there is no other relative who can attend to all matters as well. She is to be no dependent, only for whatever love we choose to give her. Anthony has made an ample allowance for her, indeed such a generous one that it irks me to accept it. If it makes too much work for you and Eunice, we will have some help. Miss Winn is to look after her, that was her father's wish; so there will be no change. Of course, it alters our quiet mode of living, but perhaps we were getting in too much of a rut and needed some shaking up;" smiling gravely. "Try and make it as comfortable for them as you can. There is plenty of room in the house for us all." Then there was nothing before them but acceptance. In a way she had known it, but there was a vague idea seething in her mind that if the maid could be dismissed, she and her sister could train the child in a better manner, and instil some Salem virtues in her that yet held a little of the old Puritanic leaven; like industry, economy, forethought. She still believed in the strait and narrow pathway. That Chilian should take the matter so philosophically _did_ surprise her. To him there seemed something so pitiful in the hope held out to the little girl, yet after all could it have been managed any more wisely? She would not know what the acute pang of death was. And her longing would become less, there would be a vagueness in her sorrow that would help to heal it. This would be her home. He had been living all these years for himself, was it not time that he espoused some other motive? That he began to be of real service? He finished his talk with Miss Winn. Cynthia was hopping over some coils of cable, and he watched her agile, graceful movements, half smiling. "Come and tell me good-bye," he said, holding out his hand. "I am going in to Boston." "In a vessel?" "No; though I suppose that would be possible. I am late for the stage, and must go on horseback." "Where is Boston?" "Oh, some eighteen miles--rather southerly. It is a big city, and the capital." "When are you coming back?" with a daintily anxious air. "Oh, by supper-time." "Well;" nodding. "What shall I bring you?" "Nothing at all. We have twice too much now, Rachel says. Only--be sure to come back." "If I did not, what then?" "If you did not come back, I should go to India with Captain Corwin. I like Miss Eunice a little, but your other lady doesn't want me," she replied with a frankness that was amusing, it was so free from malice. "Good-bye until to-night, then." She put her hand in his. Then she reached up tiptoe. "Kiss me," she said. "Father always did and he said, 'Be a good girl.'" "Be a good girl." Chilian kissed the soft red lips and then went his way. There was not much caressing in the restrained New England nature of that day, especially among those who had grown up with few family ties. His mother had died while he was yet quite a boy. "Let us go back now," said Rachel presently. "I believe I have found all our goods. Miss Leverett will be appalled." The child repeated the word. "What does it mean?" she asked. "Astonished, surprised." "Why, _they_ have a houseful of things;" in protest. "Then there is the less room for ours." "But there is ever so much room in the garret." "I almost wish we were going to live by ourselves in a little house, like some we saw yesterday." "Who would cook the dinner and wash the dishes?" "Oh, I could;" laughing. "Only us two? It would be lonesome." "We are not likely to." "Don't go straight home. Let us find the market again. I didn't half see it last night." "It wasn't night exactly. Yes--we must learn to find our way about, for we cannot stay in all the time. This is Essex Street. Let us turn here." The market was in its glory this morning. The stalls were ornamented with branches of evergreens, the floors sifted over with sawdust. There were vegetables and meats, but no great variety. There was no sunny south, no swift train to send in delicious luxuries. The cold storage of that day was being buried in pits and being brought out to light as occasion required. There were other stalls, with various household stores. Iron-holders, tin kettles, whiskbrooms, pins (which were quite a luxury), crockery ware even. Wagons had come in from country places and customers were thronging about them. The people interested Miss Winn, and the chaffering, the beating down in prices, was quite amusing. Here a woman was measuring some cotton goods from her chin to the ends of her fingers; here sat a cobbler doing odd jobs while some one waited. Altogether it was very entertaining, and it was dinner-time when they reached home. "Mr. Leverett has gone to Boston," announced Miss Leverett. "We must have our dinner without him." "Yes, he was down on the ship," said Miss Winn. "Do you often go to Boston?" "I am much too busy to be gadding about," returned Elizabeth sharply; "though we have connections there, and I once spent several years in the city." "I don't suppose it is at all like London. Eastern cities are so different--and dirty," she added. "Boston is very nice, quite a superior place, but we do not consider it much above Salem," Miss Elizabeth said, with an air. "We have nearly all of the East India trade. To be sure, there is Harvard at Cambridge, and that calls students and professors. Cousin Chilian is a graduate. He could have been an accepted professor if he had chosen." Then the conversation languished. They were hardly through dinner when the next relay of goods arrived. "Cynthia's desk must go upstairs, I suppose. Her father had it made for her birthday. Will Silas unpack again? There is a small cabinet of teakwood that is beautifully carved. If you could find room in the parlor for that. There were many other fine pieces that will no doubt be sold, and it seems a great pity." Elizabeth acquiesced rather frigidly, adding, "It is fortunate the house is large, but one seems to accumulate a good deal through generations." Cynthia went up in the garret with Miss Winn and was full of interest over the old Leverett treasures. Here was the cradle in which Leverett babies had been rocked, an old bit of mahogany nearly black with age. "How funny!" cried Cynthia, springing into it, and making a clatter on the floor. "Don't, dear! Miss Elizabeth may not like it," said Miss Winn. "As if I should hurt it!" indignantly. "It is not ours." "But we sit on their chairs, and sleep in their beds, and eat at their table," returned the child. "Do you suppose they do not want us?" "Our coming is Mr. Leverett's affair, and he is your guardian, so whatever home he provides is right." "Well, we can have a home of our own when father comes?" "Oh, yes; when he comes." "Well, then I shall not mind;" decisively. Still she peered about among the old things. There were some iron fire-dogs, a much-tarnished frame, with a cracked glass that cut her face in a grotesque fashion, old dishes and kitchen furniture past using, or that had been supplanted by a newer and better kind. "Oh, dear! this is an undertaking!" declared Miss Winn, with a sigh. "I do not believe you will ever use half these things; there are stuffs enough to dress a queen." It was beginning to grow dusky before she was through, though the sky was overcast, and there would be no fine sunset. Indeed, the wind blew up stormily. Cynthia had been viewing the place from the windows in the four gables, though she had to stand on a box. There were South River and the Neck and the shipping--the men, hurrying to and fro, looking so much smaller that it puzzled Cynthia. And there was North River winding about, and over beyond the great ocean she had crossed. There was old St. Peter's Church, the new one was not built until long afterward, and smaller places of worship. There was the small beginning of things to be famous later on. The wind began to whistle about and it grew cool, so they were glad to go down to the cheerful sitting-room, where a fire was blazing on the hearth. "We shall have a storm to-night," said Miss Eunice, "our three days' storm that usually makes its appearance about this time. Didn't you 'most perish upstairs? And what did you find to interest you?" Cynthia had brought a stool and sat close to Miss Eunice, leaning one arm on her knee. "Oh, so many queer things. You don't mind if I call them queer, do you?" "Oh, no; they _are_ queer. And when we are dead and gone some one will call ours queer, no doubt. But we haven't many. When father died we were on a farm just out of Marblehead. Things were mostly sold at a vendue, for the two boys were going in the army. That was back in '78. Mother and we two girls went to her mother's at Danvers. Elizabeth took up sewing, but there were hard times, for the war stretched out so long, and it did seem as if the Colonies would never gain their cause. But they did. Brother Linus was killed, and later on I had a dear friend lost at sea. Mother died, and we were sort of scattered about till we came here. Cousin Chilian was very good to us. So you see we haven't much to leave, but then we haven't any descendant;" and she gave a soft little laugh. "Elizabeth has mother's gold comb, set with amethysts, and a brooch, and I have the string of gold beads and some rings. A cousin in London sent them to grandmother." "Eunice, you might set the table," said Elizabeth, rather sharply. "I'm making some fritters. They will taste good this cold night." "Couldn't I help?" asked Rachel. "Oh, you must be tired enough without doing any more. It's a good thing you have all your belongings housed. The garret doesn't leak." "Yes, I am thankful. I really did not think there was so much." There was a savory fragrance in the sitting-room. Chilian came in, looking weary with his long ride. "It is almost wintry cold," he said, holding his hands to the fire. "Have you had a nice day, little girl?" "Yes;" glancing up with a smile. They did justice to Bessy's nice supper. Chilian had seen Cousin Giles, who sent remembrances to them all, and was coming up some day to see Letty Orne's little girl. Chilian found there was a good deal of business to do. For a while his days of leisure and ease would be over. Then he brought out a Boston paper and read them some of the news. Miss Eunice went on with her fringe. Elizabeth was knitting a sock for Chilian out of fine linen yarn, spun by herself, and she put pretty open-work stitches all up the instep. For imported articles were still dear, and there was a pride in the women to do all for themselves that they could. Cynthia leaned her head on Rachel's lap and went asleep. "Do hear that rain! The storm has begun in good earnest." It was rushing like a tramp of soldiers, flinging great sheets against the closed shutters, and the wind roared in the chimney like some prisoned spirit. "Wake up, Cynthia, and say good-night." Elizabeth watched the child. Her theory was that children should be put to bed early and not allowed to lie around on any one's lap. There was always a tussle of wills when you roused them. She drew herself up with a kind of severe mental bracing and awaited the result, glad Chilian was there. Rachel toyed with the hair, patted the soft flushed cheek, and took the hands in hers. "Cynthia," she said gently, "Cynthia, dear, wake up." The child roused, opened her eyes. "I'm so tired," she murmured. "Will we never be done crossing the wide, wide ocean? And where is Salem?" "We are there, dear, safe and housed from the storm. You have been asleep on my knee. Come to bed now. Say good-night." She stood the little girl up on her feet and put one arm around her. It was against Elizabeth Leverett's theories that any child should go off peaceably, with no snarling protest. Chilian raised his book a little, hoping in the depths of his soul there would be no scene. "Say good-night." No child of Puritan training, with the fear of the rod before her eyes, could have done better. She said good-night in a very sleepy tone, and slipped her arm about Rachel's waist as they left the room together. No one made any comment at first. Then Eunice said, in what she made a casual tone: "She seems a very tractable child." "You can't tell by one instance. Children of that age are always self-willed. And allowing a child to lie around one's lap, when she should have said her prayers and gone to bed at the proper hour, is a most reprehensible habit. And I don't suppose she ever says a prayer." Eunice thought of the daily prayers for her father's safe journey. Would that be set down as a sort of idolatry? Chilian picked up his papers; he had grown fastidious, and rarely left his belongings about to annoy Elizabeth. Eunice rolled up her work and dropped it in the bag that hung on the post of her chair, straightened up a few things, stood the logs in the corner and put up the wire fender, so there should be no danger of fire; while Elizabeth set all things straight in the kitchen. Cynthia meanwhile was undressed and mounted the steps to the high bed. Then she flung her arms about Rachel's neck. "Oh, come and sleep in my bed to-night!" she cried pleadingly. "It's so big and lonesome, that I am afraid. I wish it was like your little bed. They were so cunning on the ship. I don't like this one, where you have to go upstairs to get in it. Oh, do come!" And Elizabeth Leverett would have been shocked if she could have seen the child cuddled up in her attendant's arms. Theoretically, she believed Holy Writ--"He hath made of one blood all nations." Practically she made many exceptions. CHAPTER V MAKING FRIENDS WITH THE LITTLE GIRL The northeast storm was terrific. The wind lashed the ocean until it writhed and groaned and sent great billows up on the land. The trees bent to the fierce blasts; many storms had toughened them and perhaps taught them the wisdom of yielding, since it must be break or bend. Silas sat in the barn mending tools and harness and clearing up generally; Elizabeth spent most of the first day clearing up the garret again, and looking with a grudging eye on the new accession of boxes, and sniffing up the queer smell disdainfully. "One can't have the windows open," she ruminated, "and the smell must go through the house. I don't believe it will ever get out." More than one family in Salem had stores from the Orient. Many of them liked the fragrance of sandalwood and strange perfumes. "God's fresh air was good enough for her," said Elizabeth. Eunice had finished her fringe and brought out some patchwork in the afternoon--a curious pattern, called basket-work. The basket was made of green chintz, with a small yellow figure here and there. It had a handle from side to side, neatly hemmed on a white half square. The upper edge of the basket was cut in points and between each one was a bit of color to represent or suggest a possible bud of some kind. One had pink, different shades of red, and a bright yellow. She had seven blocks finished and they were in the bottom of the box. Eunice took them out for the little girl, who spread them on the floor. No one was thinking at that day of the mills that would dot New England, where cotton cloths, calicoes, and cambrics would be turned out by the bale. These things had to be imported and were costly. One could dye plain colors that were used for frocks and gowns, and some of the hand looms wove ginghams that were dyed in the thread beforehand. "It will take forty-two blocks," said Miss Eunice. "Six one way, seven the other." "Then what are you going to do with it?" asked the child eagerly. "Why, quilt it. Put some cotton between this and the lining, and sew them together with fine stitches." "And then----" "Why"--Eunice wondered herself. There were chests of them piled away in the garret--Chilian's mother's, and those they had made to fill in the moments when housework was finished. She had a quiet sense of humor, and she smiled. What were they laying up these treasures for? Neither of them would be married, most of their relatives were well provided for. "Well, some one may like to have them;" after a pause. "You must learn to sew." "Patchwork?" It was absurd to pile up any more. "You see," said the child, "no one needed them over there;" inclining her head to the East. "You have a little bed and a pallet, and it is warm, so you do not need quilts. And the poor people and the servants have a mat they spread down anywhere and a blanket, but you see, they sleep with their clothes on." Eunice looked rather horrified. "But they change them! They would--why, there would be soil and vermin." "They go to the river and bathe and wash them out. They sling them on the stones in a queer way. But some of them are very dirty and ragged. They are not like the English and us, and don't wear many clothes. Sometimes they are wrapped up in a white sheet." "It is a very queer country. They are not civilized, or Christianized. I don't know what will become of them in the end." "It's their country and no one knows how old it is. China is the oldest country in the world." "But, my dear, there was the garden of Eden when God first created the world. Nothing could be older than that, you know. Two thousand years to the flood, and two thousand years to the coming of Christ, and some people think the world will end in another two thousand years." "I don't see any sense in burning it up, when there are so many lovely things in it;" and Cynthia's eyes took on a deep, inquiring expression. "That was what the chaplain used to say. Father thought it would go on and on, getting wiser and greater, and the people learning to be better and making wonderful things." "My dear, what the Bible says _must_ be true. And it will be burned up. You have a Bible?" "The chaplain gave me a pretty prayer-book. It is upstairs." "We do not believe in prayer-books, dear." The tone was soft, yet decided. "We came over here, at least our forefathers did, that we might worship God according to the dictates of our conscience. We tried to leave the prayer-books and the bishops behind, but we couldn't quite. You must have a Bible and read a chapter every day. Why, I had read it through once before I was as old as you." Cynthia simply stared. Then, after a pause, she said: "Did you sew patchwork, too?" "When I was eight I had finished a quilt. And I learned to knit. I knit my own stockings; I always have. And I braided rags for a mat. Mother sewed it together." "And your clothes--who made those?" "Well--mother made some. But a woman used to come round fall and spring and make for the girls and boys, though father bought his best suit. He had one when he was married; it was his freedom suit as well----" "Why, was he a prisoner?" the child interrupted. "Oh, no;" smiling a little. "Boys had to be subject to their fathers until they were twenty-one. Then they had a suit of clothes all the way through and their time, which meant they were at liberty to work for any one and ask wages. He had been courting mother and they were married soon after, so it was his wedding suit. He had outgrown it before he died, so he had to get a new one. Mother sold that to a neighbor that it just fitted." "Tell me some more about them." Cynthia was fond of stories. And this was about real folks, not the fantastic legends she had heard so often. "Well--he and mother worked, she had been living with a family. Girls did in those days, and were like daughters of the house. Father went to work there. They were married in the spring and in the fall he took a place on shares; that is, he had half of everything, and they divided up the house. A year or so afterward it was for sale, and he bought it, and we were all born there, and there was no change until he died. That was a sad thing for us. He'd been buying some more land, and the place wasn't clear. Another man stood ready to buy it, and mother thought it best to sell. You see there was a good deal of trouble between us and England, who wanted to get all the money she could out of the Colonies, and wasn't willing to send troops to protect us from the Indians, and we had to sell our produce and things to her, and presently the Colonies wouldn't stand it any longer, and there was war. Some people were bitterly opposed to it, some favored it. Then we wouldn't take the tea she insisted on our buying, and there was the Stamp Act. And Salem really made the first armed resistance. You must go out some nice day to North Bridge. The British troops marched up from Marblehead to seize some arms they heard were stored here. General Gage sent them. But the people had word, for a Major Pedrick rode up to give the alarm, and they hid them in a secure place. Colonel Leslie headed the British troops to make the search. But the people of Salem turned out strong and met the colonel and declared that he was marching on private property, not on the King's highway, that the lane and the bridge were private property, where he had no right. You see, war had not been declared and the people had a right to defend their own. So they would not allow them to cross the river and make a search. But, finally, they agreed, if the draw over the river could be lowered and they allowed to march a few rods, they would withdraw. Of course, they saw nothing suspicious and came back, keeping their word. Otherwise, I suppose, that would have been the first battle of the war. We were not living here then, but Cousin Chilian's father lived in this very house." "And the arms were really there!" Cynthia drew a long breath. "Oh, yes! They were ships' cannon going to be mounted for protection. Some day Cousin Chilian may take you over to the bridge and tell you all about it. There was a romance about a girl said to be in love with a British officer, but you are too young for such stories." If she had not been, the entrance of Elizabeth and Miss Winn would have checked the garrulity of Eunice. Cynthia had been laying down the small diamond-shaped pieces, making a block. "Why do you let the child muddle over those pieces, Eunice? The carpet may not be clean," said Elizabeth sharply. "And it is getting dark, so we had better put them all up. Mercy! how it still rains. Why, it seems as if there would be another flood." "That can never happen. We have the promise." "That the whole world will not be destroyed. But parts of it may suffer. You and Cynthia are fortunate not to be in it;" and Eunice raised her eyes to them, with a certain thankfulness. It had not stopped yet in the morning, but the wind was veering to the south, the air was not so cold and the rain much gentler. Cynthia wandered about like an unquiet spirit. It was cold up in their room. Chilian had proposed a fire, but Elizabeth had negatived it sharply. "There ought to be room enough in the dining-room and keeping-room for two extra people," she said decidedly. He felt sorry for the little girl with her downcast face, as he met her on the landing. "Don't you want to come and visit me?" he asked, in an inviting tone. "Oh, yes!" and the grave little face lightened. The blaze was brighter here than downstairs, she felt quite sure. And the room had a more cheerful look. The table was spread with books and papers, and, oh, the books that were on the shelves! The curious things above them suggested India. There really was the triple-faced god she had seen so often, carved in ivory, and another carving of a temple. She walked slowly round and inspected them. Then she paused at a window. "How much it rains!" she began. "I don't see how so much rain can be made. When is it going to stop?" "I think it will hold up this afternoon and be clear to-morrow, clear and sunny." "I like sunshine best. And little rains. This has been so long." "And we haven't much to amuse a child. When it clears up we must find some little folks. Does it seem very strange to you?" "I haven't lived with big women much, except Rachel. And the houses are so different. You get things about, and the servants pick them up. There are so many servants. Sometimes there are white children, but not many. Their mothers take them back to England. Or they die." She uttered the last sadly, and her long lashes drooped. He wondered a little how she had stood the climate. She looked more like a foreigner than a native of Salem town. "What did you do there?" He hardly knew how to talk to a little girl. "Oh, a great many things. I went to ride in a curious sort of cart--the natives pulled it. Then the children came and played in the court. They threw up balls and caught them, ever so many, and they played curious games on the stones, and acrobatic feats, and sung, and danced, and acted stories of funny things. Then father read to me, and told me about Salem when he was a little boy. You can't really think the grown-up people were little, like you." "And that one day you will be big like them." She pushed up her sleeve. They were large and made just big enough for her hand at the wrist, not at all like the straight, small sleeves of the Puritan children. After surveying it a moment, she said gravely: "I can't understand _how_ you grow. You must be pushed out all the time by something inside." "You have just hit it;" and he smiled approvingly. "It is the forces inside. There is a curious factory inside of us that keeps working, day and night, that supplies the blood, the warmth, the strength, and is always pushing out; it even enlarges the bones until one is grown and finished, as one may say. And the food you eat, the air you breathe, are the supplies." "But you go on eating and breathing. Why don't you go on growing?" There was a curious little knot in her forehead where the lines crossed, and she raised her eyes questioningly to him. What wonderful eyes they were! "I suppose it is partly this: You employ your mind and your body and they need more nourishment. Then--well, I think it is the restraining law of nature, else we should all be giants. In very hot countries and very cold countries they do not grow so large." He could not go into the intricacies of physiology, as he did with some of the students. "You did not go to school?" "Oh, no!" She laughed softly. "The native schools were funny. They sat on mats and did not have any books, but repeated after the teacher. And, sometimes, he beat them dreadfully. There were some English people had a school, but it was to teach the language to the natives. And then Mr. Cathcart came to stay with father. He had been the chaplain somewhere and wasn't well, so they gave him a--a----" "Furlough?" suggested Chilian. "Yes; father sent him out in one of the boats. He began to teach me some things. I could read, you know. And I could talk Hindostani some--with the children. Then I learned to spell and pronounce the words better. He had a few books of verses that were beautiful. I learned some of them by heart. And Latin." "Latin!" in surprise. "He had some books and a Testament. It was grand in the sound, and I liked it. There were many things, cases and such, that I couldn't get quite straight, but after a little I could read, and then make it over into English." When he was eight he was reading Latin and beginning French. Some of the Boston women he knew were very good French scholars, though education was not looked upon as a necessity for women. It seemed odd to him--this little girl in Calcutta learning Latin. "Let us see how far you have gone." Teaching never irked him when he once set about it. He hunted up a simple Latin primer. "Come around this side;" and he drew her nearer to him. There had been no little girls to train and teach, and for a moment he felt embarrassed. But she took it as a matter of course, and he could see she was all interest. It had been, as he supposed, rather desultory teaching. But she took the corrections and explanations with a sweetness that was quite enchanting. And she could translate quite well, in an idiomatic fashion. Really, with the right kind of training she would make a good scholar. "Oh, you must be tired of standing," he said presently. "How thoughtless of me. I have no little chairs, so I must hunt one up, but this will have to do now. That will be more comfortable. Now we can go on." She laughed at her own little blunders in a cheerful fashion, and made haste to correct them. And then he found that she knew several of the old Latin hymns by heart, as they had been favorites of the English clergyman. They were interrupted by a light tap at the door. He said "Come"; and turned his head. It was Miss Winn. "Pardon me. We couldn't imagine where Cynthia was. Hasn't she been an annoyance?" "Oh, no; we have had a very nice time." "But--had you not better come downstairs. Miss Eunice is sewing her pretty patchwork again." "Oh, let me stay," she pleaded. "Do I bother you?" It crossed his mind just then that in the years to come more than one man would yield to the sweet persuasiveness of those eyes. "Yes, let her stay. She is no trouble. Indeed, we are studying." Miss Winn was glad of his indorsement. Miss Elizabeth had been "worrying" for the last ten minutes. She had crept softly up to the garret, quite sure she should find the child in mischief. Then she had glanced into the "best chamber," but there was no sign of her there. "Very well," replied Miss Winn. Cynthia drew a long breath presently. "Oh, you are tired!" he exclaimed. "Run over to the window and tell me how the sky looks. I think it doesn't rain now." She slipped down, stood still for a moment, then turned and clapped her hands, laughing deliciously. "Oh, there is blue sky, and a great yellow streak. The clouds are trying to hide the sun, but they can't. Oh, see, see!" She danced up and down the room like a fairy in the long ray of sunshine that illumined the apartment. "Oh, are you not glad!" She turned such a joyous face to him that he smiled and came over to the window that nearly faced the west. "Better than the Latin?" "Well--I like both;" archly. He raised the window. A warm breath of delightful air rushed in, making the room with the fire seem chilly by contrast. He drew in long reviving breaths. Spring had truly come. To-morrow the swelling buds would burst. "We must have a little Latin every day. And occasionally a walk in the sunshine. Twice a week I go down to Boston, but the other days will be ours." "I like your room," she said frankly. "But what sights of books! Do you read them all?" "Not very often. I do not believe I have read them all through. But I need them for reference, and some I like very much." He wanted to add, "And some were a gift from your dear father," but he could not disturb her happy mood. "Suppose we go down on the porch. It is too wet to walk anywhere." "Oh, yes;" delightedly. "And to-morrow I will go down to the vessel again and see Captain Corwin. I do not want it to rain any more for weeks and weeks." "No, for days and days. Weeks would dry us all up, and we would have no lovely spring flowers." "And a famine maybe. Do the very poor people sometimes starve?" "I do not think we have any very poor people, as they do in India. We are not overcrowded yet." The rain had beaten the paths and the street hard, and it looked as if it had been swept clean. In spite of it all there were cheering evidences of spring. "There are some children in that house," she exclaimed, nodding her head. "Yes, the Uphams. There are two girls and two boys, the oldest and the youngest, who isn't much more than a baby. Bentley Upham must be about twelve. Polly is next, but she is a head taller than you. Then there's Betty. I am glad there will be some little girls for you to play with." She looked eager and interested. "Will you come in to supper? Chilian, you ought to know better than to be standing in this damp air. And that child with nothing around her!" "The air is reviving, after having been housed for two days." But he turned and went in, leading the child by the hand. The long, bleak New England coast winter was over, though it had lingered as if loath to go. Springs were seldom early, no one expected that. But this one came on with a rush. The willows donned their silver catkins and then threw them off for baby leaves, the lilac buds showed purple, the elms and maples came out in bloom, and the soft ones drew crowds of half-famished bees to their sweet tassels. The grass was vividly green, iridescent in the morning sun, with the dew still upon it. Snowdrop, crocus, hepatica, and coltsfoot, wild honeysuckle, were all about, the forsythia flared out her saucy yellow, the fruit buds swelled. Parties were out in the woods hunting trailing arbutus that has been called the darling of northern skies, that lies hidden in its nest of green leaves, silent, with no wind tossing it to and fro, but betrayed by its sweetness. There were other signs of spring at Salem. The whole town seemed to burst out in house-cleaning. Parlor shutters were thrown open and windows washed. Carpets were beaten, blankets hung out to air, those that had been in real use washed. Women were out in gardens with sunbonnets and gloves, a coat of tan not being held in much esteem, and snipped at roses and hardy plants. Men were spading and planting the vegetable gardens, painting or white-washing fences. All was stir and bustle, and tired folk excused themselves if they nodded in church on Sunday. Cynthia made pilgrimages to the _Flying Star_ that had been her home for so long. The storm had wrought great havoc with some of the shipping, and big boys were out gathering driftwood. The _Gazette_ had some melancholy news of "lost at sea." But Captain Corwin thought he had weathered worse storms. "She is picking up mightily," he said to Miss Winn, nodding toward Cynthia. "Shouldn't be surprised if she favored her mother, after all. Only them eyes ain't neither Orne nor Leverett. Don't let her grieve too much when the bad news comes." Eunice and Chilian had taken her to call on the Uphams. And though she was quite familiar at home, here she shrank into painful shyness and would not leave Eunice's sheltering figure. "Children get soonest acquainted by themselves," declared Mrs. Upham. "I suppose you will send her to school. If she's not very forward, Dame Wilby's is best. She and Betty can go together. Why, she isn't as tall as Betty--and nine, you said? Granny was talking the other day about the time she was born. She's a real little Salem girl after all, though she's got a foreign skin, and what odd-colored hair! We've started Polly to Miss Betts. I want her to learn sewing and needlework, and she's too big now to company with such children. Why, I was almost a woman at twelve, and could spin and knit with the best of them. Miss Eunice, I wish you'd teach her that pretty openwork stitch you do so handy. Imported stockings cost so much. They say there's women in Boston doing the fancy ones for customers. But I tell Polly if she wants any she must do them herself." Mrs. Upham had a tolerably pleasant voice. She always talked in monologues. Betty edged around presently and would have taken Cynthia's hand, but the child laid it in Miss Eunice's lap, and looked distrustful. Chilian was as glad as she when the call ended. He did not seek the society of women often enough to feel at home with them, though he was kindly polite when he did meet them. "Did you ask about the school?" was the inquiry of Elizabeth that evening. "Yes; she thinks Dame Wilby's the best for small children. And Cynthia knows so little that is of real importance, though she reads pretty well," said Eunice. "Yes, she must get started. I shall be glad when the _Flying Star_ is off and she isn't running down there with the men. I don't see what's got into Chilian to think of teaching her Latin. It had enough sight better be the multiplication table." So she proposed the school to Chilian. She had a queer feeling about his fancy for the child. She would have scouted the idea of jealousy, but she would have had much the same feeling if he had "begun to pay attention" to some woman. The other matters had reached a passable settlement. The "best chamber" was tidily kept, the little girl well looked after to see that she troubled no one. Miss Winn kept her clothes in order, but they had a decidedly foreign look, and of materials no one would think of buying for a child. But the goods were here, and might as well be used. Miss Winn had made a few alterations in the room--softened the aspect of it. She longed to take out the big carved bedstead, but she knew that would never do. She made herself useful in many unobtrusive ways, gardened a little, was neighborly yet reserved. "I don't know what we would do if she were a gossip," Elizabeth commented. She broached the subject of the school to Chilian. "Why, yes," he answered reluctantly. "I suppose she ought to go. She's curiously shy with other children." "She talks enough about that Nalla, as if they had been like sisters." "You can notice that she always preserves the distinction, though." "There's no use bothering with that Latin, Chilian. Next thing it will be French. And she won't know enough figuring to count change. Girls don't need that kind of education." "But some of them have to be Presidents' wives. And some of them wives to men who have to go abroad. French seems to be quite general among cultivated people." "It's hardly likely she'll go abroad. And she needs to be like other people. I don't see what you find so entertaining about her. And you couldn't bear children in your room!" "She isn't any annoyance. Then she is so deft, so dainty. She touches books with the lightest of fingers. She will sit and look at pictures, and it quite surprises me how much she knows about geography." "And nothing much about her native country. She can't tell the difference between Pilgrims and Puritans. And she didn't know why we came over here, and why it was not the same God in England, and if all the gods in India were idols. Chilian, you shouldn't encourage her irreverence. It looks pert in a child." "She will get over these ways as she grows older and mingles with other children." "That is what I am coming to. She ought to begin at once. Betty Upham goes to Dame Wilby. Her mother considers it excellent for small children. She could go with Betty and there would be no fear of her trailing off no one knows where." Of course, she ought to go to school. He could manage a big boy on the verge of manhood very well. But this woman-child puzzled him. She seemed very tractable, obedient in a certain sense, yet in the end she seemed to get, or to take, her own way. Suppressing one train of action opened another. She had a sweet way of yielding, but a strong way of holding on. A little thing made her happy, yet in her deepest happiness there was much gravity. His theories were that certain qualities brought to pass certain results. He forgot that there were no such things as pure temperaments, and that environments made second nature different from what the first might have been. The child puzzled him by her contrariety, yet she was not a troublesome child. "Well;" reluctantly. "I'll see the Dame. And we will start her on Monday." He nodded. Elizabeth had another point to gain. She looked over her trunk of pieces. Here were several yards of brown and white gingham, quite enough for a frock without any furbelows. With the roll in her hand she tapped at the partly open door. Rachel had laid out on the bed several white frocks, plain enough even for Salem tastes. "Cynthia's going to school on Monday," she announced. "And I thought this would make her a good school frock. It won't be dirtysome. You see children here _do_ dress differently. You'll get into the ways." Rachel looked at the gingham. "I shouldn't like it for her," she said quietly. "Her father always wanted to see her in white. That is new every time it is washed. These things fade and then look so wretched. Beside she will only outgrow these frocks." "Children here keep their white frocks for Sundays," was the decisive reply. "She may as well wear these out. They were made last summer. She has not grown much meanwhile. I should like to keep her in the way her father desired." "Then she must have a long-sleeved apron to cover her up. This will make two. For those white things make an endless sight of washing." "I have been considering that," said Rachel Winn quietly. "I wear white a good deal myself. I noticed a small house on Front Street where there were nearly always clothes on the lines, and I stopped in to inquire. I felt it was too much laundry-work for your woman through the summer. This Mrs. Pratt is very reasonable and does her work nicely. So I have made arrangements with her. Captain Leverett made a generous allowance for incidental expenses." What Elizabeth termed Miss Winn's "independence" grated sorely upon her ideas of what was owing to the head of the house, which was herself. It was always done so quietly and pleasantly one could hardly take umbrage. Cynthia was not exactly a child of the house. She was in no wise dependent on her newly found relatives. Chilian had made that understood in the beginning, when he had chosen the best chamber for them. "You don't need to take boarders," she had replied tartly. "I don't know as we are to call it that. I am the child's guardian and answerable for her comfort and her welfare. The perfect trust confided in me has touched me inexpressibly. I didn't know that Anthony Leverett held me in such high esteem. And if I choose to put this money by until she is grown--it will make such a little difference in our living----" "Chilian Leverett, you are justly entitled to it," she interrupted with sharp decision. "He's right enough in making a fair provision for them--no doubt he has plenty. But I don't quite like the boarder business, for all that." "We must get some one to help you with the work." "I don't want any more help than I have. Land sakes! Eunice and I have plenty of leisure on our hands. I wouldn't have a servant around wasting things, if she paid me wages." They had gone on very smoothly. Eunice had found her way to the child's heart. But then Eunice had lived with her dream children that might have been like Charles Lamb's "Children of Alice." Elizabeth might have married twice in her life, but there was no love in either case, rather a secret mortification that such incapables should dare to raise their thoughts to her. But she had some strenuous ideas on the rearing of children, quite of the older sort. Life was softening somewhat, even for childhood, but she did not approve of it. CHAPTER VI GOING TO SCHOOL Elizabeth Leverett interviewed Dame Wilby beforehand. The woman came half a day on Monday to wash and she hardly knew how to spend half an hour, but when she found Miss Winn was going, she loftily relegated the whole business to her. Dame Wilby lived in an old rambling house, already an eyesore to the finer houses in Lafayette Street, but the Dame was obstinate and would not sell. "It was going to last her time out. She was born here when it was only a lane, and she meant to be buried from here." Once it had been quite a flourishing school; but newer methods had begun to supersede it. It was handy for the small children about the neighborhood, it took them over the troublesome times, it gave their mothers a rest, and kept them out of mischief. And the old dames were thorough, as far as they went. Indeed, some of the mothers had never gone any farther. They could cast up accounts, they could weigh and measure, for they had learned all the tables. They could spell and read clearly, they knew all the common arts of life, and how to keep on learning out of the greater than printed books--experience. Dame Wilby might have been eighty. No one remembered her being young. Her husband was lost at sea and she opened the school, worked in her garden, saved until she had cleared her small old home, and now was laying up a trifle every year. She was tall and somewhat bent in the shoulders, very much wrinkled, with clear, piercing light blue eyes and snowy hair. She always wore a cap and only a little line of it showed at the edge of her high forehead. Her frocks were made in the plainest style, skirts straight and narrow, and she always wore a little shoulder shawl, pinned across the bosom--white in the summer, home-dyed blue in the winter. Some children were playing tag in the unoccupied lot next door. The schoolroom door opened at the side. There were two rows of desks, with benches for the older children, two more with no desks for the A B C and spelling classes. The rest they learned in concert, orally. The dame had a table covered with a gray woollen cloth, some books, an inkstand, a holder for pens and pencils, and the never-failing switch. "Yes," she answered to Miss Winn's explanation. "Miss Leverett was telling about her. I was teaching school here when she was born, and then the captain took her away to the Ingies again." Most folks pronounced it that way. "Rather meachin' little thing--I s'pose it was the climate over there. They say it turns the skin yellow. Let's see how you read, sissy?" She read several verses out of the New Testament quite to the dame's satisfaction. Then about spelling. The second word, in two syllables, floored her. Had she ciphered? No. Did she know her tables? No. The capital of the state? That she could answer. When the war broke out? When peace was declared? "I'll ask Cousin Leverett," she answered, in nowise abashed by her ignorance. "He tells me a great many things." "You must study it out of books. I s'pose she's going to live here? She's not going back to the Ingies? I heard the captain was coming home." "He is settling up his affairs," was the quiet answer. Dame Wilby looked the child all over. "You'll sit on that bench," she said. Then she rang the bell and the children trooped in, staring at her. The little boys--four of them--were on the seat back of her, on her seat she made the fifth. Betty Upham was in the desk contingent. They repeated the Lord's prayer in concert. Then lessons were given out. The larger girls read. "You can come and read with this class;" nodding to Cynthia. She was not a regularly bashful child, but she flushed as the children stared at her. They sometimes wore their Sunday white frock one or two days at school. Cynthia was so used to her clothes, cared so little about them that they were rarely in her mind. But this universal attention annoyed her. "'Tend to your books, children." Cynthia acquitted herself finely, rather too much so, the dame thought. She would talk to her about it. A girl didn't want to read as if she was a minister preaching a sermon. Then she was given a very much "dog's-eared" spelling-book to study down a column. Another class read some easy lesson; a story about a dog that interested her so much that she forgot to study. While the older children were doing sums one little boy after another came up to the desk and spelled from a book. One's attention wandered and the dame hit him a sharp rap. Tables followed, eight and nine times; dry measure, and then questions were asked singly. Some few missed. Cynthia followed the spelling where they went up and down. Then the larger ones were dismissed for recess. "Cynthy Leverett, come up here and see how many words you can spell. You ought to be ashamed, a big girl like you staying behind in next to the baby class." Cynthia's face was scarlet. Alas! She had been so interested watching and listening she had not studied at all. But the words were rather easy and she did know all but two. "Now you take the next line and those two over again. See if you can't get them all learned by noon." The next little girl, who could not have been more than six, missed a number. She had a queer drawl in her voice. "What did I tell you, Jane Mason? And you have missed more than two. Hold out your hand!" The switch came down on the poor little hand with an angry swish. Cynthia winched. "Now you go back and study. No going out to play for you this morning. Jane Mason, you're the biggest dunce in school." The two other girls did better. Then the bell rang and the girls came in with flushed and laughing faces. Cynthia studied her two words over until they ceased to have any meaning. At twelve they were all dismissed. "Isn't she a hateful old thing?" said Janie Mason, when they were outside of the door. "I wish I was big enough to strike back. I don't like school anyhow. Do you?" "I--I don't know. I have never been before." Several of the other girls swarmed around her with curious eyes. "What a pretty frock!" began Betty Upham. "I suppose it's your Sunday best, with all that work." "Betty said you were an Injun," said another. "I never saw an Injun who didn't have coarse, straight, black hair, and yours is lightish and curls. I'd so love to have curly hair." "I'm not the kind of Indians you have here," she returned indignantly. "I was born right here in Salem. I've lived in Calcutta and in China, and been to Batavia, and ever so many places." "Then you ain't an Injun at all! Betty, how could you?" "Well, that's what some of them said. Maybe your mother was an Injun!" looking as if she had fixed the uncertain suspicion. "No, she wasn't. She lived here part of the time. She was born in Boston." They glanced at each other in a kind of upbraiding fashion. "And you had to be put with the little children! Aren't there any schools in that place you came from? It's a heathen country. Our minister prays for it. Don't you have any churches either? What do people do when they are grown up if they never go to school?" "Are you coming stiddy?" "Is Mr. Chilian Leverett your real relation?" "Oh, tell me--have you any other frock as pretty as this? My sister Hetty has a beautiful one, all lace and needlework. She's saving it to be married in." "Martha, I dare you to a race!" Two girls ran off as fast as they could. Betty Upham caught Cynthia's arm. "I didn't say you were a real Injun. Debby Strang always gets things mixed up. But it is something queer----" "East India;" in a tone of great dignity. "Where the ships are coming from all the time? Is it prettier than Salem?" "It's so different you can't tell. We do not have hardly any winter. And there are vines and flowers and temples to heathen gods, and the people _are_ yellow and brown." "Do you suppose you will ever grow clear white?" Cynthia had half a mind to be angry. Even Miss Elizabeth was fair, and Miss Eunice had such a soft, pretty skin. "There, that's your corner. You're coming this afternoon?" "Oh, I suppose so." Miss Elizabeth was all bustle and hurry. It was clouding up a little. It hadn't been a real fair day, and the hot sun had dried the clothes too quick. She liked them to bleach on the line, it was almost as good as the grass. And Miss Drake couldn't stay and iron, they had sickness over to the Appletons and she had to go there. Everything was out of gear. "I'd help with the ironing, if you would like," said Miss Winn. "Well, the ironing isn't so much;" rather ungraciously. "You see, there were four blankets. I never touch an iron to them, but shake them good and fold them, and let them lay one night, then hang them on the line in the garret. The bulk of it was large. And a good stiff breeze blows out wrinkles. The wind hasn't blown worth a Continental;" complainingly. "Did you like the school?" Miss Winn inquired in the hall. "No, I didn't. And I don't seem to know anything;" in a discouraged tone. "Oh, you will learn." It was warm in the afternoon. Two of the boys were decidedly bad and were punished. They positively roared. Cynthia spelled, and spelled, and studied--"One and one are two," "one and two are three," and after a while it dawned on her that it was just one more every time. Why, she had known that all the time, only it hadn't been put in a table. It grew very tiresome after a while. She asked if she couldn't have recess with the big girls, but was sharply refused. In truth the good dame grew very weary herself, and was glad when five o'clock came and she could go out in the garden and recruit her tired nerves. The stage was stopping at the door. Oh, how glad she was to see Cousin Leverett. He smiled down in the flushed face. "How did the school go?" he asked. She hung her head. "I don't like it. I have to be with the little class because I don't know tables, but I learned all the one times. That was easy enough when you came to see into it. But--nine and nine?" "Eighteen," he answered promptly. "And you answered it right offhand!" She gave a soft, cheerful laugh. "Oh, do you suppose I shall ever know so much?" "There was a time when I didn't know it." "Truly?" She looked incredulous. "Truly. And I had quite hard work remembering to spell correctly." "I studied two lines. This morning I missed two words, but this afternoon I knew them all. And I can't write on the slate. The pencil wabbles so, and then it gives an awful squeak that goes all over you. And I can't do sums. And there's all the tables to learn. And I don't like the teacher. I wish Miss Eunice could teach me. Or maybe Rachel might." "I might help you a little. But you read well?" "She said it was too--too"--she wrinkled up her forehead--"too affected, like a play-actor." "Nonsense!" he cried disapprovingly. "We will see about some other school presently. Would you like to take a walk with me? I'm tired of the long stage-ride." "Oh, so much!" She caught one hand in both of hers and gave a few skips of joy. "Let us go over to the river." Of course, he should have gone in and announced their resolve. But he was so used to considering only himself, and he realized that it must have been a tiresome day to her. They went over Lafayette Street, which was only a lane, and then turned up the stream. Oh, how sweet the air was with the odorous dampness and the smell of new growths, tree and grass. The sun, low in the west, slanted golden gleams through the tree branches which chased each other over the grassy spaces, as if they were quite alive and at merry-making. There were sedgy plants in bloom, jack-in-the-pulpit, and what might have been a lily, with a more euphonious name. Iridescent flies were skimming about, now and then a fish made a stir and dazzle. Squirrels ran up and down the trees and chattered, robins were singing joyously, the thrush with her soft, plaintive note. She glanced up now and then and caught his eye, and he felt she was happy. It was a delightful thing, after all, to render some one truly happy. Perhaps children were more easily satisfied, more responsive. "Oh," he said presently, "we must go back or we will lose our supper, and Cousin Elizabeth will scold." "I shouldn't think she would dare to scold you;" raising wondering eyes. "Why not?" He wondered what reason she would give. "Because you are a man." "She scolds Silas." "Oh, that is different." "How--different? We are both men. He is quite as tall as I." "But you see--well, he is something like a servant. She tells him what to do, and if he doesn't do it right she can find fault with it. But you are--well, the house is yours. You can do what pleases you." "Quite reasoned out, little one;" and he laughed with an approving sound. "It's curious that you scold people you like, and other people may do the same thing and--is it because you don't dare to? If it is wrong in the one place, why not in the other?" "Perhaps politeness restrains us." "I don't like people to scold. Miss Eunice never does." "Eunice has a sweet nature. Doesn't Miss Winn ever scold you?" "Well--I suppose I am bad and wilful sometimes, and then she has the right. But when you do things that do not matter----" Miss Winn was walking in the garden. Cynthia waved her hand, but walked leisurely forward. "I couldn't imagine what had become of you." "It was my fault," interposed Chilian. "I met her at the gate and asked her to go for a walk." "And with that soiled apron!" "That came off the slate. I hadn't any desk. It was hard to hold it on my knee." "You might have come in for a clean one. Run upstairs and change it." But she was destined to meet Cousin Elizabeth in the hall. The elder caught her arm roughly. "Where have you been gadding to, bad girl? Didn't you know you must come straight home from school? Here we have been worried half to death about you, and I'm tired as a dog, trotting 'round all day. You deserve a good whipping;" and she shook her. She would have enjoyed slapping her soundly. But Chilian entered at that instant. "She is going upstairs for a clean apron," he said. "I took her off for a walk." "She might have asked whether she could go or not," snapped Elizabeth. "She's the most lawless thing!" "It was my place. Don't blame the child!" "Well, supper's ready." She didn't have her apron on quite straight and her hair was a little frowsy. Elizabeth had proposed it should be cut short on the neck for the summer, but Miss Winn had objected. "Such a great mop! No child wears it!" Cynthia came in quietly and took her place. After her first cup of tea Elizabeth thawed a little, enough to announce that two of the Appleton children were ill, they thought with scarlet fever. Chilian expressed some sympathy. "And how was the school, Cynthia? We thought you might have been kept in for some of your good deeds, as children are so seldom bad." "I--I didn't like it," she answered simply. "Children can't have just what they like in this world," was Elizabeth's rejoinder. "Nor grown people either," was Chilian's softening comment. Then he changed the subject. He had seen Cousin Giles, who proposed to pay them a visit, coming on some Saturday. "Have you any lesson to learn?" he asked of Cynthia. "If so, bring your book and come to my room." "Oh, thank you!" Her face was radiant with delight. Where had she left her book? Dame Wilby had told her to take it home and study. Surely she had brought it--oh, yes! she had put it just inside the gate under the great clump of ribbon grass. If only Cousin Elizabeth's sharp eyes had not seen it. But there it was, safe enough. She was delighted to go to Cousin Chilian's room, though she never presumed. She seemed to have an innate sort of delicacy that he wondered at. The spelling was soon mastered. It was the rather unusual words that puzzled her. Then they attacked the tables and he practised her in making figures. Like most children left to themselves, she printed instead of writing. "Oh!" she cried with a wistful yet joyous emphasis, "I wish I could come to school to you. And I'd like to be the only scholar." "But you ought to be with little girls." "I don't like them very much." Then Miss Winn came for her. "You are very good to take so much trouble," she said. "Oh, I like you so much, so much!" she exclaimed with her sweet eyes as well as her lips. He recalled then the day on board the vessel, when she had besought in her impetuous fashion that he should kiss her. She had never offered the caress since. She was not an effusive child. Her position at school was rather anomalous. A younger woman might have managed differently. There was a new scholar that rather crowded them on the bench. And the boy back of her did some sly things that annoyed her. He gave her hair a twitch now and then. One day he dropped a little toad on her book, at which she screamed, though an instant after she was not at all afraid. Of course, he was whipped for that, and for once she did not feel sorry. "You're a great ninny to be afraid of a toad not bigger than a button," he said scornfully. "I'll get you whipped some day to make up for it, see if I don't." Thursday was unfortunate and she was kept in for some rather saucy replies. When she returned they were in the sitting-room and had been discussing some household matters. She surveyed them with a courageous but indignant air. "I've quit," she exclaimed. "I'm not going there to school any more." She stood up very straight, her eyes flashing. "What!" ejaculated Cousin Elizabeth. "Why, I've quit! She wanted to make me say I was sorry and beg her pardon, and she threatened to keep me all night, but I knew some of you would come, at least Rachel." "And I suppose you were a saucy, naughty girl!" "What happened?" asked Chilian quietly. "Why, you see--I went up to her table with the figures I had been making on my slate. I'd done some of them over three times, for Tommy Marsh joggled my elbow. Then I went back to my seat. We're crowded now, and I went to sit down and sat on the floor. I do believe Sadie Green did it on purpose--moved so there wasn't room enough for me to sit. And Tom laughed, then all the children laughed, and Dame Wilby said, 'Get up, Cynthy Leverett,' and I said 'My name isn't Cynthy, if you please, and I haven't any seat to sit on if I do get up.' And then the children laughed again, and I don't quite know what did happen, but I was so angry. Then she said all the children should stay in for laughing. She called me to the desk and I went. The slate was broken and I laid it on the table. Then she said wasn't I sorry for being saucy, and I said I wasn't. It was bad enough to fall on the floor, for I might have hurt myself. Then she took up her switch, and I said: 'You strike me, if you dare!' Then she pushed me in a little closet place, and there I staid until after school was out. Then she said, 'Would I tell Miss Leverett to come over?' and I said Mr. Leverett was my guardian and I would tell him, but I wasn't coming to school any more, and that Tommy Marsh pinched me and pulled my hair, and called me wild Indian. And so--I've quit. You can't make me go again. I'll run away first and go on some of the boats." There was a blaze of scarlet on her cheeks and her eyes flashed fire, but she stood up straight and defiant, when another child might have broken down and cried. Chilian Leverett always remembered the picture she made--small, dark, and spirited. "No," he exclaimed, "you need not go back." Then he rose and took her hand that was cold and trembling. "You will not go back. Let us find Miss Winn----" "Chilian!" warned Elizabeth. He led Cynthia from the room, up the stairs. Miss Winn sat there sewing. She clasped her arms about him, he could fairly feel the throb in them. "Oh," she cried with a strange sort of sweetness. "I love you. You are so good to me, and I have told you just the truth." Then she buried her face on Miss Winn's bosom. Chilian went downstairs. He laughed, yet he was deeply touched by her audacity and bravery. "Elizabeth," he announced; "I will see Mrs. Wilby. Let the matter die out, do not refer to it. I did not think it quite the school for her. We will find something else." "Chilian, I must make one effort for you and her. Going on this way will be her ruin. I should insist upon her going back to school and apologizing to Mrs. Wilby. I wouldn't let a chit like that order what a household of grown people should do and make them bow down to her. You will be sorry for it in the end. You have had no experience with children, you have seen so few. And a man hasn't the judgment----" His usually serene temper was getting ruffled, and with such characters the end is often obstinacy. "If she is to make a disturbance here, become a bone of contention with us, I will send her away. Cousin Giles is taking a great interest in her. There are good boarding-schools in Boston, or she and Miss Winn could have a home together under his supervision. There is enough to provide for them." "And you would turn her over to that half-heathen woman!" in a horrified tone. "Then I wash my hands of the matter. Send her to perdition, if you will." CHAPTER VII CHANGEFUL LIGHTS OF CHILDHOOD Elizabeth Leverett busied herself about the supper. She felt as one does in the threatening of a thunderstorm, when the clouds roll up and the rumbling is low and distant and one studies the sky with presentiments. Then it comes nearer, flirts a little with the elements, breaks open and shows the blue that the scurrying wind soon hides and the real storm bursts. She had believed all along that it must come. She was not an ungracious or a selfish woman outside of her own home. She was good to the sick and the needy, she gave of her time and strength. In the home there was a sense of ownership, of the self-appropriation so often termed duty. Everything had gone on smoothly for years. She had settled that Chilian would not marry. Such a bookish man, whose interests lay chiefly with men, did not need a wife when there was some one at hand to make him comfortable. And that he surely was. He understood and enjoyed it. He had only to suggest to have. Her affection for him was like that for a younger brother. Even Eunice could not minister so well for his comfort, though, like Mary of Bible lore, she often added a delicate pleasure in listening to matters or incidents that interested him. Elizabeth had settled to the idea of a little heathen soul that she was to lead aright. Missionary work in godless lands had not made much advance and, having no mother, who was there to warn her of the great peril of her soul? Seafaring men were not much given to thought of the other world. Perhaps there was some grace for them in the hours of peril, she had heard they prayed to God in an extremity; and there was the dying thief. But on land no one had a right to count on this. The child had changed everything. Even Eunice seemed to have lost the sharp distinction. Miss Winn belonged to the ungodly, that was clear--though she was upright, honest, neat, and in some ways sensible. But her ideas about the child were foreign and reprehensible--dangerous even. The child was no worse than others, not as bad as some, for she had either by nature or training a delicate respect for the property of others. She never meddled. She asked few questions even when she stood by the kitchen table and watched the mysteries of cake and pie making and the delicacies of cooking. It was the right to herself that annoyed Elizabeth. People had hardly begun to suspect that children had any rights. "But if she went away? If she was swallowed up in the vortex of the more populous city"--greater, Salem would not have admitted. "If the child's soul was finally lost, would she be quite clear? Would she have done all that she could for her salvation?" She thought of it as she prepared the supper. She surveyed the inviting-looking table and then rang the bell. Eunice brought in a handful of flowers. Chilian came--and Miss Winn. "Cynthia has gone to bed, she does not want any supper," was her quiet announcement. Elizabeth would have sent her to bed supperless, and approved of a severer punishment. Miss Winn asked some questions about Boston. "I have quite a desire to see it," she added. Yes, she would no doubt plan for a removal. Then the child would be forever lost. And a Leverett, too, come of a strong God-fearing family! The child, when she had hidden her face on Rachel's bosom, gave some dry, hard sobs that shook her small frame. Rachel smoothed her hair, patted the shoulder softly, and said "Dear" in a caressing tone. Then had come a torrent of tears, a wild hysterical weeping. She did not attempt to check it, but took Cynthia in her arms as if she had been a baby. "I'm not going to that school any more," she said brokenly, after a while. "What happened, dear?" Cynthia raised her head. "It was very mean, as if I had done it on purpose! Why, I might have hurt myself;" indignantly. "How was it?" gently. And then the story came tumbling out. She saw a certain ludicrous aspect in it now, and laughed a little herself. "I couldn't help being saucy. And I thought she was going to strike me. Tommy Marsh began to laugh first. The slate broke----" "Are you quite sure you were not hurt?" "Well, my arm hurt a little at first, but it is all well now. But I shan't go back to school,--no, not even to please Cousin Leverett, and I like him best of any one." "I'm going down to supper, dear. Shall I bring up yours?" "I don't want any. I couldn't eat anything. And I can't have Cousin Elizabeth's sharp eyes looking at me. Oh, I'm glad I am not her little girl! I like you a million times better, Rachel;" hugging her rapturously. "I think I'd like to have a glass of milk. And may I lie on your little bed?" "Yes, dear." She was asleep when Rachel came up and it was past nine when she woke, drank her milk, and went to bed for the night. How gaily the birds were singing the next morning, and the sunbeams were playing hide-and-seek through the branches that dance in the soft wind. All the air was sweet and the little girl couldn't help being light-hearted. She sang, too; not measured hymns of sorrow and repentance, but a gay lilt that followed the bird voices. And she went down to breakfast and said her good-morning cheerfully. "That child has the assurance of the Evil One," Elizabeth thought. Cynthia waylaid Cousin Chilian as he was going down the path. "I meant what I said yesterday. I won't go to that school any more. If there was some other--only--only I wish you could teach me until I could get up straight in all the things, so the other children wouldn't laugh when I made blunders. I suppose it does sound funny;" and a smile hovered about the seriousness. "We will consider another school," he returned kindly, smiling himself at the remembrance of the tempest of yesterday. She persuaded Rachel to go out to walk and they went over to the bridge. She had been so interested in the story of it. Before it had faded from the minds of men it was to be splendidly commemorated as a point of interest in the old town. "I like real stories," she said. "I don't understand about the war, but it is fine to think the Salem men made the British soldiers go back when all the while the cannon and other arms were hidden away. You don't mind, Rachel, if the Colonists did beat England, do you? I'm a Colonist, you know." "That is long ago, and we are all friends now. I think the Colonists were very brave and persevering and they deserved their liberty. I have heard your father talk about the war." "Oh, when do you suppose he will come? It seems so long to wait." Rachel smiled to keep the tears out of her eyes. Chilian Leverett made a call and a brief explanation to Dame Wilby. She admitted she had been hasty, but the children were unusually trying. She was getting to be an old body and maybe she hadn't as much patience as years ago. Cynthia said so many odd things that the children _would_ giggle. She was slow in some things, and it seemed hard for her to learn tables, but she was not a bad child. So the tempest blew over. Elizabeth preserved a rather injured silence, but Eunice was cheerful and ready to entertain Cynthia with stories of the time when she was a little girl. Chilian arranged for her to spend most of the mornings with him when he was at home. She liked so very much to hear him read. The histories of that time were rather dry and long spun out, but he had a way of skipping the moralizing and the endless disquisitions and adding a little more vividness to people and incidents. It inspired him to watch her face changing with every emotion, her eyes deepening or brightening, and the slight mark in her forehead where lines of perplexity crossed. Then they would talk it all over. Often he was puzzled with her endless "whys" that he could not rightly explain to a child's limited understanding. Sometimes she would say, "Why, I would have done so," and he found her course would be on the side of the finest right, if not what was considered feasible. The spelling was a trial when the words were a little obscure. And though she had a wonderful knack of guessing at things, she surely was not born for a mathematician. He had a fine, quick mind in that respect. But the Latin was a delight to her and she delved away at the difficult parts for the sake of what she called the grand and beautiful sound. His rendering of it enchanted her. "I don't see any sense in educating her like a boy," declared Elizabeth. "And she can't do a decent bit of hemming. She ought to work a sampler and learn the letters to mark her own clothes. We did it before we were her age. Chilian thinks you can hire people to do these things for you, but it seems so helpless not to be able to do them for yourself. Housekeeping is of more account than all this folderol. She can never be a college professor." "But women _are_ keeping schools," interposed Eunice. "They don't teach Latin and all kinds of nonsense. That Miss Miller was here a few days ago to see if we didn't want our niece--folks are beginning to call her that--to see if we did not want her to take lessons on the spinet. I was so glad she did not appeal to Chilian, though he was out. I said, 'No,' very decidedly, 'that she had a good many things to learn before she tackled that.' And she said she ought to be trained while her fingers were flexible, and I said I thought washing would make them flexible enough. And there's fine ironing." "There's no need of either for her," protested Eunice. "Oh, you don't know. There might be a war again. And a trouble about money. I'm sure there is talk enough and the country raising loans all the time, one party pulling one way, one the other. People are getting awfully extravagant nowadays. Patty Conant gave seven dollars a yard for her new black silk, and there were twelve yards. It broke pretty well into a hundred, and there was some fancy gimp and fringe and the making. Of course, there's going to be two weddings in the family, and I don't suppose Patty will ever buy another handsome gown at her time of life. Abner brought her home that elegant crape shawl, with the fringe and netting nearly half a yard deep. Maybe 'twas a present, she let it go that way." "Of course, there's money enough among the Conants," Eunice commented gently. "As I said--one can't always tell what will come to pass, nor how much need you may have for your money. But I'm thankful my heart is not set on the pomps and vanities of this world. And children ought to be brought up to some useful habits." It was a fact that Cynthia did not take to the useful branches of womanly living. She abhorred hemming--and such work as she made of it! Miss Eunice groaned over it. "But you ought to have seen what I did two or three weeks ago," and she laughed with a gay ring. "Such stitches! When I made them nice on the top, they were dreadful underneath, and the cotton thread was almost black. What is the use of taking such little bits of stitches?" "Why--they look prettier. And--it is the right thing to do." "But you know Rachel can hem all the ruffles. And Cousin Elizabeth said ruffles were vanity. I'd like my frocks just as well to be plain." "There would have to be nice stitches in the hem." "Rachel didn't sew when she was little. A great lady took her to Scotland, to wait on her, to get her shawl when she was a little cool, and fan her when she was warm, and carry messages, and drive out in the carriage with her. They had servants for everything. And then--she was ten years old--she sent her to a school, where she learned everything. But she doesn't know all the tables and a great many other things." "But she knows what fits her for her station in life." Cynthia looked puzzled. "What is your station in life?" she asked with an accent of curiosity. "Oh, child, it is where you are placed; and the work of life is the duties that grow out of it--and your duty towards God." Cynthia dropped into thought. "Then my duty now is to study. I like it; that is, I like a good many things in it. And when my father comes home it will be changed, I suppose. You can't stay a little girl always." "But you will have to learn to keep house," returned Eunice. "Oh, I'll have some one to do that. Men never have to cook or keep house. Oh, yes; all the cooks on the ship were men. Wasn't that funny!" she continued. She laughed with so much innocent merriment that Miss Eunice laughed too. "I suppose you have to do various things in your life," she sagely remarked, after a pause. "Then you must learn to do the various things now." "I believe I won't ever get married. I'll live with father always, and we will have some one to keep the house, and Rachel will make the clothes. And I'll read aloud to father. We'll have a carriage and go out riding, and talk about India. I remember so many things just by thinking them over. Isn't it queer, when for a long time they have gone out of your mind? Oh, dear Cousin Eunice, what makes you sigh?" Cousin Eunice took off her glasses, wiped them vigorously, and then wiped her eyes. "It is a bad habit I have." But she was thinking of the dream of the little girl that could never come true. The two days in the week that Chilian went into Boston were long to Cynthia. She sat in his room and studied. He had given her a small table to herself and a shelf in a sort of miscellaneous bookcase. He found that she never trespassed and that she did really study her two hours, sometimes longer when the task was not so easily mastered. There _was_ some of the old Leverett blood in her, but it had a picturesque strain. She placed every book at its prettiest, and her papers were gathered up and taken down to the kitchen when she was done with them. She was beginning to write quite well. Then in the afternoon she went to walk with Rachel to show her the curious places Cousin Leverett had told her about. And there were still beautiful woods around the town, where they found wild flowers and sassafras buds. Elizabeth was very much engrossed. She had cleared the garret spick and span, scrubbed up the floor, wiped off her quilting frames, and put in her white quilt, rolling up both sides so she could get at the middle. There was to be a circle, with clover leaves on the outside. Then long leaves rayed off from the exact middle. She had all the patterns marked out. When that was done a wreath went around next--oak leaves and acorns. She had groaned over the time the little girl devoted to Latin, but she never thought all this a waste of precious hours. She would never need it and she could not decide upon any relative she would like to leave it to. There was one quilt of this pattern in Salem and, though white quilts were made, few could afford to spend so much time over them. There were knitted quilts, with ball fringe around four sides, and the tester fringed the same way. Old ladies kept up their habits of industry in this manner when they were past hard work. Eunice had finished her basket quilt and it was really a work of art. But she was out in the flower garden a good deal in the early morning and late afternoon. Cynthia sometimes kept her company, but she was not an expert in gardening science. In the evening they sat out on the porch, and a neighbor called perhaps. Or she walked over to South River if it was moonlight. And, oh, how beautiful everything was! But it was not all quilting with Miss Elizabeth. In July wild green grapes were gathered for preserves. Cynthia thought it quite fun to help "pit" them. You cut them through the middle and with a small pointed knife took out the seeds. She tired of it presently and did not cut them evenly, beside she was afraid of cutting her thumb. Cousin Elizabeth went about getting dinner, which was quite a simple thing when Chilian was away, and at night they had a high tea. "I'll cut them," said Eunice, "and you can pick out the seeds. But maybe you are tired;" with a glance of solicitude. "Yes, I'm tired, but I'm going to keep straight on until dinner-time," she answered pluckily. "You are a brave little girl." But Cousin Elizabeth said, "Well, for once you have made yourself useful." There was a great point of interest just then for the people on this side of the town. Front Street was the old river path that had followed the shore line. One end was known now as Wharf Street, and was beginning to be lined with docks. Up farther to what is now Essex Street there had stood a house with a history. Its owner had been a Tory, and just before the war broke out he entertained Governor Gage and the civil and military staff. Timothy Pickering had been summoned to the Governor's presence, but he kept his Excellency so long in an indecent passion that the town-meeting had to be adjourned. Troops were ordered up from the Neck and for a while an encounter seemed imminent. Later, when the Colonists were in the ascendency, Colonel Browne's estate was confiscated, and after the close of the war it was turned over to Mr. Elias Derby. Now he was removing it to make way for a much finer residence and, being a notably patriotic citizen, he did not enjoy the stigma of a Tory house. Parts were carried away as curiosities, and there were some beautiful carvings and fine newel posts that found a place in new homes as mementoes. Afterward, Mr. Derby built the handsomest and costliest house in Salem, with grounds laid out magnificently. Then came a very busy time. There was preserving that every housewife attended to for winter use, pickling of various kinds, for there was no canning stock in those days to eke out. There were some queer fruits from India, and preserved ginger in curious jars that are highly esteemed to this day, but they were luxuries. Then a house-cleaning season, not as bad as the spring, but still bad enough. And flower seeds to be saved, garden seeds to be dried, so the beautiful quilt was rolled up in a thick sheet and put away for the present. The little girl had made quite friends with the Upham children and went over there to tea all alone, but she felt very strange. They played tag and blind-man's buff, but Cynthia thought puss in the corner the most fun. Bentley was a nice big boy and very well mannered. Polly talked over her school and brought out her needlework, which was to be the bottom of a white frock. It would be only two yards round and she had almost a yard worked. Then she was making a sampler, with an oak and acorn vine around it, and it was to have four different kinds of lettering on it. "I don't know when I shall get it done," she said with a sigh. Betty declared Dame Wilby was crosser than ever and Priscilla Lee wasn't coming back, nor Margaret Rand, and she was coaxing mother to let her go elsewhere. After a while Cynthia declared she must go home. Cousin Chilian had said he would come for her, but the clock was striking nine and he had not come. He sometimes _did_ forget. Bentley took his hat and walked beside her in quite a mannish way. "I do hope you will come again," he said. "You were so pleasant when you were caught, and I do hate to have girls saying all the time, 'Now that isn't fair,' and squirming out." "But if you're playing you must take the best and the worst. I liked puss in the corner and didn't mind being the left-out pussy. I thought it was quite fun to hunt a corner again." Then they met Cousin Chilian, who had been playing a rather prolonged game of chess with a visitor. But Bentley kept on with them, and said good-night with a polite bow, adding, "She must come again, Mr. Leverett, we had such a very nice time." "And wasn't he nice!" exclaimed the child eagerly. "He is like some of the grown-up men. I like big boys much better than the little ones." He smiled to himself at that. Now there came cool nights and mornings, but the world was beautiful in its turning leaves, the fragrance of ripening fruit, and the late gorgeous-colored flowers. They took delightful walks and found so many curious places. Sometimes Bentley Upham met them and joined in their walks and talks. He thought the little girl knew a great deal. And that she had been in India, and China, and ever so many of the islands, was wonderful. "Don't you ever sew?" he asked one afternoon, as they were rambling about. "I don't like it much;" and she glanced up with fascinating archness. "I suppose I shall have to some day, but Cousin Leverett thinks there is time enough." "I'm glad you don't," in a hearty tone. "I don't have any good of Polly any more. What with her white frock, and some lace she is making for a cape, and forty other things, she never has time for a game of anything, or a nice walk. And she doesn't care about study, though her lessons are so different. I don't know another girl who studies Latin, and it's so nice to talk it over. How rapidly you must have learned." He looked at her in admiration. "Oh, I knew some of it before I came here. There was a chaplain in Calcutta who was--well, not exactly ill, but not well; and father took him with us on the vessel when he went for certain things, and he staid with us afterward. He used to read aloud, and it sounded so splendid! Then he taught me. But Cousin Leverett said it wasn't quite right, so I am going over it. And he is teaching me a little French." "You know they think women don't need to know much beside housekeeping and sewing. I just hate to hear about ruffles cut on the straight or bias, and I couldn't tell what Dacca muslin, or jaconet, or dimity was to save myself. And eyelet work and French knots and run lace--that's what the big girls who come to see Polly talk about. But I like books, and studies, and different countries. I'd like to travel. But I don't know that I want to be a sea captain." They found some queer old houses that were odd enough. Mr. Leverett said they were almost two hundred years old, and that at first the place kept the old Indian name, Naumkeag. But the Reverend Francis Higginson gave it a new name out of the Bible--"In Salem also is His tabernacle." The early pilgrims built a chapel at once. "How close the houses are!" It was a row that had survived the hand of improvement. There was a huge central chimney-stack, big enough for a modern factory, and the house seemed built around it. The second story overhung the first, and in some of them were small dormer windows looking like bird houses. And the little panes of greenish glass seemed to make windows all framework. Cynthia was much interested in the Roger Williams house, and the story of the old minister. "Why, I thought religion made people good and pleasant----" Then she checked herself, for often Cousin Elizabeth was _not_ pleasant. And she seemed more religious than Cousin Eunice. And Cousin Chilian rarely scolded or said a cross word--he never talked about religion, but he went to church on Sunday; they all did. She studied the Catechism, she could learn easily when she had a mind to, but she didn't understand it at all. She shocked Elizabeth by her irreverent questions. There was the old horn-book primer with-- "In Adam's fall We sinned all." "I don't see how that could be when we were not there!" she said almost defiantly. "It means the nature we inherited." "But I don't think that fair!" "You don't know, you never can understand until you are in a state of grace. Don't ask such impertinent questions. You are a little heathen child." Then she asked Cousin Chilian what "a state of grace" meant. "I think it is the willingness to do right, to be truthful, kindly, obliging. It is all comprised in the Golden Rule--to love God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself, not to do anything to him that you would not like to have done to yourself, and to do to him whatever you would like him to do for you. That is enough for a little girl." "That sounds like Confucius," she said thoughtfully. But she went back to Roger Williams when Bentley said he was one of his heroes. "What did he do?" she asked, interested. "Well, he founded the City of Providence. And if William Penn is to be honored for founding a city of brotherly love, Roger Williams deserves it for establishing a city where different sects should agree without persecuting each other. You see, they banished him from Salem back to England because he thought a man had some right to his own opinions, so long as he worshipped God. So he went to Providence instead. He walked all the way with just his pocket compass to guide him, and how he must have worked to make a dwelling-place for himself and his friends in the dead of winter! There were some Quakers already there, who had been banished from other settlements, and they all resolved to be friendly. Yes, I call him a hero!" Cynthia studied the house with the little courtyard and the great tree shading it. "Polly said it was the Witch House," she remarked. "That was because there were trials for witchcraft. You are too young to hear about that," Chilian said decisively, with a glance at Bentley. CHAPTER VIII SORROW'S CROWN OF SORROW Occasionally they went down to the warehouse, and while Chilian was busy some of the captains or mates would speak to her. They knew about her father and one sad fact she did not know. For she had settled in her mind that Captain Corwin would bring him back and that it would take a long, long while. So she tried to be content and if not teasing or fretting was one of the ways of being good, she tried her utmost to keep to that. She was too brave to tell falsehoods to shield herself from any inadvertent wrongdoing, even if Cousin Elizabeth did sometimes say: "You ought to be soundly whipped. To spare the rod is to spoil the child." She thought if anybody ever did whip her she should hate him all the rest of her life. Servants and workmen were beaten in India, and it seemed degrading. She did not know that Cousin Chilian had insisted that she should never be struck. He was understanding more every day how her father had loved her, and finding sweet traits in her unfolding. She liked these rough bronzed men to touch their odd hats to her and call her Missy. Some of them had seen her in Calcutta and knew her father. And when she said, "It takes a long, long while to go there and come back, but when Captain Corwin brings him he is going to live here and will never go to sea any more"--"No, that he never will, missy;" and the sailor drew his hand across his eyes. Oh, how full the wharves were with shipping! Flags and pennons waved, and white sails; others, gray with age and weather, flapped in the wind. She liked to see them start out; she always sent a message by them in the full faith of childhood. And there were the fishermen in the cove lower down. Fishing was quite a great business. Cousin Giles had made his visit and spent two whole days down in the warehouse, when they had not taken her. But she helped Cousin Eunice cut the stems of the sweet garden herbs for drying, and the others for perfumery. There was lavender, the blossoms had been gathered long ago, and sweet marjoram and sweet clover. She always gathered the full-blown rose leaves and sewed them up in little bags and laid them among the household stores. Everything was so fragrant. Cynthia thought she liked it better than sandalwood and the pungent Oriental perfumes. Then came the autumnal storms, when the vessels hugged the docks securely at anchor. The house was chilly all through and fires were in order. Some two or three miles below there was a wreck of an East Indiaman, and for days fragments floated around. Some lives were lost, and the little girl shuddered over the accounts. All the foliage began to turn and fall. The late flowers hung their heads. It had been a beautiful autumn, people said to pay up for the late spring. There had been a little discussion about a school again. "She seems so small, and in some things diffident," Chilian said. "The winters are long and cold, and she has not been used to them. Cousin Giles thinks her very delicate." "She isn't like children raised here, but she's quite as strong as common. She oughtn't be pampered and made any more finicking than she is. A girl almost ten. What is she going to be good for, I'd like to know?" Cousin Giles had not made much headway with her. He was large and strong with an emphatic voice, and a head of thick, strong white hair, a rather full face, and penetrating eyes. He had advised about investments, though he thought no place had the outlook of Boston. But Salem was ahead of her in foreign trade. Chilian Leverett felt very careful of the little girl. For if she died a large part of her fortune came to him. He really wished it had not been left that way. There was an East India Marine Society that had many curiosities--stored in rooms on the third floor of the Stearns building. It had a wider scope than that and was to assist widows and orphans of deceased members, who were all to be those "who had actually navigated the seas beyond Cape of Good Hope, or Cape Horn, as masters or supercargoes of vessels belonging to Salem." To this Anthony had bequeathed many curiosities and a gift. There was talk of enlarging its scope, which was begun shortly after this. Matters had settled to an amicable basis in the Leverett house. Rachel had won the respect of Elizabeth, who prayed daily for her conversion from heathendom and that she might see the claims the Christian religion had upon her. Eunice and she were more really friendly. She made some acquaintances outside and most people thought she must be some relation of the captain's. She had proved herself very efficient in several cases of illness, for in those days neighbors were truly neighborly. Cynthia did shrink from the cold, though there were good fires kept in the house. This winter Chilian had a stove put up in the hall, very much against Elizabeth's desires. Quite large logs could be slipped in and they would lie there and smoulder, lasting sometimes all night. It was a great innovation and extravagance, though wood seemed almost inexhaustible in those days. And it was considered unhealthy to sleep in warm rooms, though people would shut themselves up close and have no fresh air. Then the snow came, but it was a greater success in the inland towns, and there were sledding and sleigh-riding. The boys and girls had great times building forts and having snowballing contests. But the little girl caught a cold and had a cough that alarmed her guardian a good deal and made him more indulgent than ever, to Elizabeth's disgust. She was not really ill, only pale and languid and seemed to grow thinner. She was much fairer than any one could have supposed and her eyes looked large and wistful. Chilian put some pillows in the big rocking-chair and tilted it back so that she could almost lie down on it. "You are so good to me," she would say with her sweet, faint smile. Bentley came in now and then of an evening, and she liked to hear what they were doing at school. Polly, too, made visits; they had a half-holiday on Saturday. She always brought some work, and Elizabeth considered her a very industrious girl. She was going to a birthday party of one of her mates. "What do they do at parties?" inquired the little girl. "Oh, they play games. There's stagecoach. Everybody but one has a seat. He blows a horn and sings out, 'Stage for Boston,' or any place. Then every one has to change seats. Such a scrambling and scurrying time! and the one who gets left has to take the horn." "It's something like puss in the corner." "Only ever so many can play this. Then there's 'What's my thought like?' That's rather hard, but funny. I like twirling the platter. If you don't catch it when it comes near you, you must pay a forfeit. And redeeming them is lots of fun, for you are told to do all sorts of ridiculous things. Then there's some goodies and mottoes and you can exchange with a boy. But Kate Saltonstall's big sister had a party where they danced. Eliza wanted some dancing, but her mother said so many people did not approve of it for children." "And don't you have some one to come and dance for you?" "Oh, what a queer idea! The fun is in dancing yourself with a real nice boy. Some people think it awfully wrong. Do you, Miss Winn?" "No, indeed. When I was a child in England we went out and danced on the green. Everybody did. And when there were doings at the great houses--like Christmas, and weddings, and coming of age--the ladies, in their silks and satins and laces, came down in the servants' hall and danced with the butler and the footmen, and my lord took out some of the maids. I don't think dancing hurts any one." "I'm glad to hear you say that, Miss Winn. They are talking of having a dancing-class in school. I hope mother will let me join it." "And they teach it in schools there." "And why shouldn't they here?" said Polly. To be sure. Cynthia was much interested and made Polly promise to come again and tell her all about it. Old Salem was awakening rapidly from her rigid torpor. "I wonder if I could ever have a party," she said to Cousin Leverett that evening. "When father comes home we might have what they did at the Perkinses when they went in their new place--a house-warming. Is that like a party?" "About the same thing." "Cousin Elizabeth thinks it wicked. Wouldn't she think dancing wicked?" "I am afraid she would." Cynthia sighed. No, she couldn't have a party here. She waited quite eagerly for Polly's account. The little girl was in her own room. Miss Winn had gone out to get some medicine. Cynthia tried to be well sometimes, so she would not have to take the nauseous stuff. No one had invented medicated sugar pills at that time. She liked Cousin Elizabeth's cough syrup. Polly was overflowing with spirits. "Oh, I want to be big, right away. Bella Saltonstall was there and she's going into company next winter, she says. And she showed us some of the dancing steps and they just bewitch you. It's like this"--and Polly picked up her frock in a dainty manner and whirled about the vacant spaces in the room. "But doesn't it tire you dreadfully? The girls in India stand still a great deal more and just sway about. They come in and dance for you." "Tire you! Oh, no. That's the great fun, to do it yourself. Bella said it was--ex--something, and the word is in the spelling-book, but I never can remember the long words. Oh, I just wish I was fifteen and wasn't going to school any more. And then there's keeping company and getting married, and having your setting out. School seems stupid. There were two boys who wanted to come home with me, but mother said Ben must. Then I wished--well, I wished he was in college. He wants to go. Father says Mr. Leverett has infected him with the craze." "If I was a boy, I'd like to go. Cousin Leverett is going to take me to Harvard next summer when they have their grand closing time." "I'd rather be a girl and have a nice beau." Plainly Polly had been saturated with dissipation. Spring was suggesting her advent. The days were longer. The snow was disappearing. "Oh, Cousin Leverett, look--there are some buds on the trees!" she cried. "Yes. You can see them at intervals through the winter. They are wise little things, and swell and then shrink back in the cold." "I'm so glad. I can soon go out. I get very tired some days. I like summer best." "Yes. I do hope we shall have an early spring." She looked up with smiling gladness. That afternoon she had fallen asleep in the big chair. How almost transparent she was. The long lashes lay on the whiteness of her cheek--yes, it was really white. And there was very little color in her lips. Abner Hayes came up from the warehouse with some papers the _Ulysses_ had just brought in. "That the captain's poor little girl?" "Yes; she's asleep. She hasn't been very well this winter, but the first nice balmy day I shall take her out driving. I've been almost afraid to have the air blow on her." "Yes, she ought to live and enjoy all that big fortune. It's a thousand pities the captain couldn't have come back and enjoyed it with her. But we must all go when our time comes. You never hear a hard word said about him, and sure's there's a heaven he is in it." Chilian held up his finger. Then he signed a paper that had to go back, and asked if the cargo of the _Ulysses_ was in good shape. Elizabeth called him downstairs after that. There was a poor man wanting some sort of a position and Chilian promised to look out for him. He had been porter in a store, but the heavy lifting made him cough. He would have to get something lighter. When he returned Cynthia was standing by his table, white as a little ghost. He almost dropped into the chair. "Was I dreaming, or did that man say my father couldn't come back to Salem, that he--that he was----" She swayed almost as if she would fall. He drew her down on his knee and her head sank on his shoulder. She was so still that he was startled. How many times he had wondered how he would get her told. Perhaps it had been wrong to wait. "My little girl! My little Cynthia----" "Wait," she breathed, and he held her closer. He had come to love her very much, though he had taken her unwillingly. "Is it true? But no one would say such a thing if it were not. I had been asleep. I woke just as he said that. Perhaps I had been dreaming about our being together. And it seemed at first as if my tongue was stiff and I couldn't even make a sound. Did he go to heaven without me?" Oh, what should he say to comfort her! She had so many feelings far under the surface. "My little dear," and his voice was infinitely fond, "I want to tell you that he loved your mother tenderly. No one could have been better loved. In the course of a few hours she was snatched away from him. You were so little--five years ago. I doubt if there was ever a day in which he did not think of her. When you are grown and come to love some one with the strength of your whole heart, you will understand how great it is. And when the summons came for him his first thought was that he should see her, and with the next he must find a new home for his little girl, so he gave you to me. It is very hard just now, but you must think how happy they are together. Perhaps they both know you are here, where you will be cared for and made happy, for we all love you. Every one has not the same way of showing love, but Cousin Elizabeth has done everything she could for you this winter. And we don't want to lose you. You won't grudge them a few years together in that happy place?" "Oh, are you quite sure there _is_ a heaven?" Oh, Cynthia, you are not the first one who has asked to have it certified. "Yes, dear; very sure," in the tone of faith. "He loved mother very much?" "Yes." There was a long silence. He felt the slow beating of her little heart. "Then I ought to be content, since he gave me to you, when he knew he was going away." "It would have been very sad if you had been left alone there. Out of his great love he planned it this way, thinking the tidings would not come so hard after a while. And now you can always recall him as you saw him last and just think, in a moment of time God called and he stepped over the narrow space that seems such a mystery to us and met _her_. I wish we didn't invest death with so much that is painful, for it is God's way of calling us to a better land where there are no more partings. Sometime you and I will go over to them." "I shouldn't feel afraid with you," she commented simply. When the tea bell rang she asked to be carried to her room and laid on Rachel's little bed. He kissed her gently and turned away. The next was his day in Boston. But late in the afternoon, after Miss Eunice had been visiting her an hour or so, she went to the study and sat by the window, where she could see him come. He glanced up and she waved her hand daintily. All day he had been wondering how he should find her. "I haven't coughed but a very little to-day," she exclaimed. "Cousin Elizabeth made some new syrup. And the doctor was in. He said I was a little lazy, that I must be more energetic." "I've been ordering a new carriage to-day. The old one was hardly worth repairing. And when you are stronger I think I'll buy a gentle pony and we can go out riding. You would not be afraid after a little?" "Not with you." Her confidence was very sweet. "I'm going down to tea to-night. I was down at noon." "Oh, you are improving. I hope there will come some warm weather and balmy airs." "It was beautiful last spring. You know I never saw a real spring before." She was bearing her loss and her sorrow beautifully. All day she had been thinking of the joy of those two when they met on the confines of that beautiful world. It made heaven seem so near, so real. Sometimes the tears came to her eyes. She was Cousin Chilian's little girl, so why should she feel lonely! Once in a number of years spring comes early. It did this time, at the close of the century. People shook their heads and talked about "weather-breeders," and mentioned snow as late as May, when fruit trees had been in bloom. But nature had turned over a bright, clear leaf, that made the book of time fairly shine. The carriage came and Cynthia was taken out. Miss Elizabeth wrapped her up like a mummy, and would put a brick, swathed in coverings, in the bottom for her feet. He had taken the ladies out occasionally, but of late years the sisters had been so busy they had little time for pleasure, they thought. They crossed North Bridge and went up Danvers way. Oh, how lovely it was with the trees in baby leaf, and some wild things blossoming. And even then industry had planted itself. There on the farther bank of Waters River was the iron mill, where Dr. Nathan Read invented his scheme for cut nails. And he built a paddle-wheel steamboat that was a success before Robert Fulton tried his. And they passed the Page house, where General Gage had his office, and Madam Page had tea on the roof, because they had promised not to use tea in the house. That amused Cynthia and he also told her of the woman, when tea first came to the country, who boiled the leaves and seasoned them, passing them around to her guests, who didn't think they were anything much in the vegetable line and too expensive ever to become general. Birds sang about them, flocks of wild geese had started on their northward journey. What a wonderful world it was! And her father had been a boy here in Salem village, had lived in Cousin Chilian's house in the father's time, and her mother had been married in the stately parlor. Why, she could dream of their being real guests of the place. How odd she should come to live here. The life in India would be the dream presently. She was very tired when Chilian lifted her out of the carriage and took her upstairs. Rachel put her to bed for a while and gave her a cup of hot tea--mint and catnip--which was a great restorer, or so considered, in those days. She came down to supper and was quite bright. Every day she improved a little. Eunice said she was getting 'climated. Elizabeth wondered if she had any deep feeling. She had expected to see her "take on" terribly. Chilian begged her not to disturb the child's faith that both parents were in heaven. "Letty Orne, that was, might have been one of the elect, but sea captains are seldom considered safe in the fold, as children of grace. I never heard that he had any evidence. And 'tisn't safe to count on meeting them unless you've had some sign." "We must leave a good many of these things to God. His ways are better than our short-sighted wisdom." Elizabeth was never quite sure of Chilian. So much study, and reading, and college talk, and the new theories, and what they called discoveries, were enough to unsettle one's faith, and she feared for him. Younger children than Cynthia had gone through the throes of conviction--she had herself, and she longed to see her in this state. But the child was quite her olden self. What with the change of climate and her illness she was many shades fairer, and her hair was losing its queer sunburned color. Her thin frame began to fill out, her face grew rounder, and her smile was sweetness itself. "But she hasn't grown a mite since she came. Leverett people are all of a fair size. I don't know a little runt among them," persisted Elizabeth. "I wish I could grow," she sighed in confidence to Chilian. "Never mind. Then you will always be my little girl," he would answer consolingly. CHAPTER IX LESSONS OF LIFE Even Chilian wondered that the little girl took the death of her father so calmly. Elizabeth called it unnatural and questioned whether the child had any deep feeling. "I don't believe she's shed a tear. And, Eunice, the child ought to go in black." The child was trying to get used to changed ideas. If her mother was glad and happy, now that they were again united, why should she be sorry? It seemed selfish to her as if she grudged them the joy. And Cousin Chilian was trying every way to entertain her, to help her on to perfect recovery. Sometimes, when she sat alone in the study, the soft eyes would overflow and the tears course silently down her cheeks. She never cried in the tempestuous way of some children. But she knew now she had counted a good deal on their having a home together. Rachel would keep the house and she and her father would take walks and have a garden, where she could cut flowers and have them in the house. Cousin Elizabeth said they made a litter. And now she should never go down to the wharf and see him standing on the deck, and wave her hand to him, as she used when he went on short journeys in India. They would have a low carry-all and ride around, as she would tell him all she had learned about Salem. And they would have people in to drink tea and have pretty dishes on the table. Perhaps he would give her a party. But she didn't know any children, except the Uphams. It might be better to go to school so that she could get acquainted. Chilian was a good deal startled about the black garments. "She is so little and thin," he objected. "I never did like children in black; it seems as if you weighted them down with woe. And he has been dead so many months now." "But one ought to pay decent respect to a custom sanctioned by all civilized people. There will be a talk about it. Folks may think it our fault." "I do not believe half a dozen people would notice it. It's only a custom after all. I never did like it. We will see how she feels about it." "Chilian, you make that child of as much importance as if she was a woman grown. You will have your hands full by and by. She will think every one must bow down to her and consult her whims and fancies." "We will see;" nodding indifferently. He didn't want her around in garments of woe. Very gently he mentioned the subject. She glanced up out of sweet, entreating eyes. She had been standing by him, looking over a very choice book of engravings. "Yes," she returned. "Rachel spoke of it. And you know there are some people who wear white, and some who put on yellow. Black isn't a nice color. Do you like it?" He shook his head. "It is the inside of me that aches now and then, when I think I shall never see him come sailing back, that I must be a long while without him until I go to their land. But he must be very happy with mother, and that is what I think of when I feel how hard it is;" and the tears stole softly down her cheeks. "I have Rachel and you, and he said you would always love me and care for me. But I try not to feel sorry, and if I had on a black frock I couldn't help but think of it all the time. Then I should be sorry inside and outside both, and is it right to make yourself unhappy when you believe people have gone to heaven?" She said it so simply that he was deeply moved. She had been alone with her sorrow all this time, when they had thought her indifferent. "You need not wear black--I wish you would not. I want you to get real well and happy. And you are a brave little girl to think of them and refrain from grief." She wiped away the tears lest they should fall on the book. "At first it was quite dreadful to me. I couldn't say anything. Then I remembered how we used to talk of mother, as if she was only in the next room. And then I sit here and think, when the sky is such a splendid blue and there come little white rifts in it, as if somewhere it opened, I can almost see them. Can't people come back for a few moments?" "Only in dreams, I imagine." "I can _almost_ see them. And they are so glad to be together. And I know father says, 'Cynthia will come by and by.' But twenty years, or thirty years, is a long while to wait." Perhaps she wouldn't need to wait so long, he thought, as he noted the transparent face. "And now I should be sorry to go away from you," she said, with grave sweetness. "I think your father meant you should stay a long while with me when he gave you to me;" and he pressed her closer to his heart. So she did not wear mourning, to Elizabeth's very real displeasure. There was no further talk about the school, but she did try to sew a little and began the sampler. Cousin Eunice was her guide here. She brought out hers that was over fifty years old, and all the colors were fading. "I wonder if I shall live fifty years," she mused. Driving about was her great entertainment. You could go to Marblehead, which was a peninsula. There were the fishery huts and the men curing and drying fish. Sometimes they took passage in one of the numerous sailing vessels and went in and out the irregular shore, and saw Boston from the bay. It seemed in those times as if it might get drowned out, there was so much water around it. "And if it should float off out to sea, some day," she half inquired, laughingly. He was glad to hear her soft, sweet laugh again. She thought she liked Salem best, and even now people began to talk of old Salem, there had been so many improvements since the time Governor Bradford had written: "Almost ten years we lived here alone,-- In other places there were few or none; For Salem was the next of any fame That began to augment New England's name." And then it went by the old Indian name and was called Naumkeag. And she found that it was older than Boston, and had been the seat of government twice, and that Governor Burnett, finding Boston unmanageable, had convened the General Court here for two years. That was in 1728, and now it was 1800. "But no one lives a hundred years," she said. "Oh, yes; there are a number of persons who have lived that long. Now and then a person lives in three centuries, is born the last year of one, goes through a whole century, and dies in the next one." "What a long, long while!" she sighed. And there was the old Court House where the Stamp Act was denounced. She wanted to know all about that, and he was fond of explaining things, the sort of teacher habit, but there was nothing dogmatic about it. Here were houses where the Leveretts had lived, third or fourth cousins who had married with the Graingers, and the Lyndes, and the Saltonstalls, and the Hales. It is so in the course of a hundred or two years, when emigration does not come in to disturb the purity of the blood. The little girl really began to improve. Her hair was taking on a brighter tint and in the warm weather the uneven ends curled about her forehead in dainty rings, her complexion was many shades fairer, her cheeks rounded out, and her chin began to show the cleft in it. She was more like her olden self, quite merry at times. The summer went on as usual. Gardening, berry-picking, and she helped with the gooseberries, the briery vines she did not like. There were jars of jam and preserves, rose leaves to gather, and all the mornings were crowded full. Often in the afternoon she went up in the garret to see Miss Eunice spin--sometimes on the big wheel, at others with flax on the small wheel. She liked the whirring sound, and it was a mystery to her how the thread came out so fine and even. Elizabeth had taken the white quilt out of its wrappings, it did not get finished the summer before. A neighbor had let her copy a new pattern for the border that had come from New York. And she heard there had been imported white woven quilts with wonderful figures in them. "Then one wouldn't have to quilt any more. Shan't you be glad, Cousin Elizabeth?" "Glad!" She gave a kind of snort and pushed the needle into her finger, and had to stop lest a drop of blood might mar the whiteness. "Well, I'm not as lazy as that comes to, and I don't see how they can put much beauty in them. You can change blue and white and show a pattern, but where it is all white! Why, you couldn't tell it from a tablecloth." It was warm up in the garret, and what with drying herbs, and the sun pouring on the shingles, there was a rather close, peculiar air. Cynthia stood by the open window, where the sweet summer wind went by, laden with the fragrance of newly cut grasses and the silk of the corn that was just tasselling out. The hills rose up, tree-crowned; white clouds floated by overhead, and out beyond was the great ocean that led to other countries--to India she thought of so often. Oh, how the birds sang! She was so sorry Cousin Eunice had to sit and spin, when there was such a beautiful world all around, and Cousin Elizabeth pricked her fingers quilting. She heard her sigh, but she did not dare look around. She had that nice sense of delicacy, rather unusual in a child. But then she wasn't an everyday child. "Cynthia," called Rachel from the foot of the stairs, "don't you want to go out for a walk? They've been unloading the _Mingo_, and they have a store of new things at the Merrits'." That was the great East India emporium. "Oh, yes!" She skipped across the floor and ran downstairs lightly. "That child's like a whirlwind," exclaimed Elizabeth crossly. "But we ought to be glad she's so much better. I was really afraid in the spring we wouldn't have her long." "Oh, the Leverett stock is tough." "But her mother died young." "Of that horrid India fever. No, I didn't truly think she would die. If she had, I wonder where all the money would go? Chilian is awful close-mouthed about it. But it would have to go somewhere. 'Tisn't at all likely he'd leave word for it to be thrown back in the sea." "No; oh, no." "There's some talk about missionaries going out to try to convert the heathen. But Giles thinks it would cost more than it would amount to. Giles has got way off; seems to me religion's dying out since they've begun to preach easy ways of getting to heaven and letting the bars down here and there. There's no struggle and sense of conviction nowadays; you just take it up as a business. And that child talks about heaven as if she'd had a glimpse of it and saw her father and mother there. Letty Orne was a church member in her younger days, but I don't believe the captain ever was. And they who don't repent will surely perish." Eunice sighed. She could never get used to the thought that thousands of souls were brought into the world to perish eternally. Cynthia tied on her Leghorn hat. It did have some black ribbon on it, and the strings were passed under her chin and tied at one side. That and her silken gown gave her a quaint appearance, rather striking as well. They walked down the street and turned corners. There was quite a procession of ladies bound for the same place. If they had been all buyers, Mr. Merrit would have made quite a fortune. But he was glad to have them come. They would describe the stock to their neighbors, and perhaps decide on what they wanted for themselves. "Ah, Miss Winn!" exclaimed a pleasant-faced woman. "And that is Captain Leverett's little girl? Why, she looks as if she was quite well again. We heard of her being so poorly. I suppose the shock of her father's death was dreadful! Poor little thing! And she's to be quite an heiress, I heard. What are they going to do with her? Won't she be sent to Boston to school?" "Oh, I think not. Mr. Leverett has been teaching her a little." They had fairly to elbow their way in. Long counters were piled with goods. Silks, laces, sheerest of muslins embroidered beautifully, lace wraps, India shawls, jewelry, caps, collars, handkerchiefs, stockings, slippers that were dainty enough for a Cinderella. And all down one side were ranged tables, and jars, and vases, and articles one could hardly find a name for. Such exquisite carving, such odd figures painted and embroidered on silk, birds the like of which were never seen on land or sea, dragons that flew, and crawled, and climbed trees, and disported themselves on waves. "Oh, it looks like home," cried Cynthia, for the moment forgetting herself. And she kept sauntering round among the beautiful things, her heart growing strangely light, and her pulses throbbing with a sort of joy. She was almost hidden by a great pile of tapestry. The Indians had found some secrets of beauty as well as France, if they did make it with infinite pains. And this was made with the little hand-looms and joined together so neatly and the colors blended so harmoniously that it was like a dream. Only the little girl did not like the dragons and strange animals. She had never seen any real ones like them. They were in the stories Nalla used to tell. Then some one else spoke to Miss Winn. "Is your little charge here?" she asked. "I'm quite anxious to see her. I've called twice on the Leveretts, and really asked for her once when they said she was quite ill. But I saw her out in the carriage with--isn't it her uncle? No? And she's to be very well to do, I've heard. The idea of the Leverett women undertaking to bring up a child! They're good as gold and some of the best housekeepers in Salem, but I dare say they'll teach her to knit stockings, and make bedquilts, and braid rag mats, and do fifty-year-old things--make a regular little Puritan of her. I knew her mother quite well before she was married. Doesn't seem as if we were near of an age and went to school together. But some of the Ornes married in our line. And I was married when I was seventeen, and now I'm a grandmother. How the years do fly on! And she had to die out in that heathen land; he too. Wasn't it odd about sending her here beforehand? I do want to see her." "She is somewhere about, interested in all these foreign things." Miss Winn was not quite sure of the chattering woman. She had learned that the Leverett ladies were exclusive, whether from inclination or lack of time. They asked their minister and a few old family friends in to tea on rare occasions, and then it was cooking and baking and cleaning up the choice old silver and dusting and polishing, and the next day clearing up. Everything out of the routine made so much extra work. Among the few English-speaking people in India there had been a sort of free and easy sociability. Cynthia meanwhile had slipped around the end of the counter and came up to them. She wanted to see the woman who had been to school with her mother. Then her mother was a little girl, perhaps no older than she. Did she like it? Cynthia wondered. "This is Captain Leverett's little daughter," Rachel announced rather stiffly. "My--but you don't favor your mother at all. I'm Mrs. Turner and I knew her off and on. We lived about thirty miles above here. Then her folks died and she went to Boston, but she used to be at the Leveretts' a good deal. I married and came here. I'm living up North River way and have a house full of children--like steps--and one grandchild, and I'm just on the eve of thirty-seven. I've one little girl about your age, but she's ever so much bigger. I'd like you to be friends with her. The next older is a girl, too. Why, you'd have real nice times if the old aunties were willing. Do they keep her strict? And she's going to be a considerable heiress, I heard. I wonder where her eyes came from? They're not Leverett eyes, and her mother's were a clear blue, real china blue, but then there's different blues in china," and she laughed. "Sad about the captain, wasn't it? He should have lived to enjoy his fortune, and now his little girl will have it all. I must come and scrape acquaintance for the sake of my girls. You'd like them, I know, they're full of fun. We're not strait-laced people--that's going out of date." Then she passed on. They wandered about a little more among the vases and jars and the paintings on silk. The air was heavy with sandalwood, and attar of rose, and incense. The fragrance seemed never to die out of those old things that became family heirlooms. "Come," Rachel said, taking her by the hand. It was quite late in the afternoon now, and the shadows of everything were growing longer. She could not understand why it was at first, but now she knew. And the sun would be round there in Asia presently. In her secret heart she still believed the sun went round and the earth stood still, for in the movement people _must_ slip off. But then what held it in the air? Cousin Chilian had a globe, but you see there was a strong wire through the middle, fastened to the frame at both ends. Perhaps the earth was fastened somewhere! She liked to make it revolve on its axis, and in imagination she crossed the oceans, and seas, and capes, and found her father again. The stage had just come in. They paused on the corner, waiting for Cousin Chilian. Some one was with him--yes, it was Cousin Giles Leverett. "Well, little woman," he began, "so I find you out here meandering round, and so much improved that I hardly know you. We were afraid in the winter you were going to slip away and leave all this fortune behind you, never having had a bit of good of it. But you look now as if you had taken a new lease. And you are positively growing!" Chilian smiled at the remark. He had begun to think so himself. And she looked so pretty just now with the pink in her cheeks and the soft tendrils of hair about her forehead, the eager, luminous eyes. He reached out and took her hand. "Have you been inspecting old Salem, and did you find any queer things?" Cousin Giles asked. "Oh, there was a great shipload of goods from India and it seemed almost as if you were walking through the booths at home, only there were no natives and no beggars or holy men----" "Tut! tut! child; they are not holy men who are too lazy to move and waiting for other people to fill their mouths. If they were here we'd make them work or they'd have to starve. They're talking about missionaries being sent out to convert them. I heard a rousing sermon on Sunday, but it didn't loosen my purse-strings. Your greatest missionary is work, good hard labor, clearing up and planting. Suppose those old _Mayflower_ people had sat down and held out their hands for alms. Do you suppose our Indians would have filled 'em with their corn, and fish, and game? Not much. They'd tied 'em to a tree and set fire to 'em." When Cousin Giles was excited he made elisions of speech rather unusual for a Boston man. "They went to work and cut down trees, and built houses, and raised farm and garden truck, and made shoes and clothes, and roads and bridges, and built cities and towns, and shamed those countries thousands of years old. And now we're trying to help them by bringing over their goods and selling them." "And creating extravagance, Elizabeth would say," returned Chilian, with a sort of humorous smile. "Oh, you might as well keep the money going as to hoard it up in an old stocking, so long as it is honestly yours. We're getting to be quite a notable country, Chilian Leverett." They turned into Derby Street, and Cousin Giles paused to survey the garden. "You've lots of things to enjoy here," he said. "I don't know but it's a sensible thing to take the good of what you have as you go along. And little Miss here will have enough without your adding to the store. You men of Salem ought to begin to do some big things--build a college." "Oh, I think our young men would rather go to Harvard. We don't want to rival you. We shall be the biggest New England seaport. We'll divide up the glories." Elizabeth was so taken by surprise that she was rather cross. She liked things planned beforehand. Now the tablecloth must come off. This one had been on since Sunday and it had two darns in it. And the old silver must come out. "I don't believe Cousin Giles would ever notice," Eunice said. "And I do think the china prettier than that old silver." "Well, it has the crown mark on it and the Leveretts owned it before they came from England. Giles' folks had some of it, too, but the Lord only knows what he's done with his. I dare say servants have made way with it, or banged it out of shape. Anybody can have china. Come, do be spry, Eunice." Cynthia went upstairs and had her hair brushed and a clean apron put on, though the other was not soiled. "Rachel, what is an heiress?" she asked. "Why--some one, a woman, who inherits a good deal of money." "Does she have to wait until she is a woman?" "Why, no. Yes, in a way, too. She can have the money spent upon her, but she can't have it herself until she is twenty-one." Cynthia wondered how it would seem to go and spend money, buy ever so many things. But she really couldn't think of anything she wanted, unless it was a house of her very own, and books, and pretty pictures, not portraits of old-fashioned men and women. And a pony and a dainty chaise. But then--she was such a little girl, and she wouldn't want to leave Cousin Chilian. Elizabeth made delicious cream shortcake for supper. Cousin Giles said everything tasted better up here, perhaps it was the clear salt water. There were so many fresh ponds and streams around Boston. But there were big plans for drainage and for docking out. Then Elizabeth was such a fine cook. The two men sat out on the stoop in the summer moonlight and Cynthia thought Cousin Giles really quarrelled trying to establish the superiority of Boston. Then they talked about investments and Captain Leverett, and Giles said, "Cynthia will be one of the richest women of Salem. Chilian, you'll have to look sharp that some schemer doesn't marry her for her money." "You must come to bed, Cynthia," declared Rachel. Through the open window they could hear Cousin Giles' voice plainly. The men went the next morning to consider an investment Chilian had in view. It had been thought best to divide the sums coming in between Salem and Boston. Then they walked about and saw the improvements, the new docks being built to accommodate the shipping, the great fleet of boats, the busy ship-yard, the hurrying to and fro everywhere. It was not merely finery, but spices and articles used in the arts. Gum copal was brought from Zanzibar. Indigo came in, though they were trying to raise that at the South. And when Giles saw the new streets and fine houses, and Mr. Derby's, that was to cost eighty thousand dollars, he did open his eyes in surprise. Though he said rather grudgingly: "It's a shame for one little girl to have all that money. There should have been three or four children. Fifty years ago the Leveretts had such big families they bid fair to overrun the earth, and now they've dwindled down to next to nothing. Chilian, why don't you marry?" "The same to yourself. Are you clinging to any old memory?" "Well, not just that. I don't seem to have time. Now you are a fellow of leisure. Get about it, man, and hunt up a wife." CHAPTER X A NEW DEPARTURE Cynthia Leverett was making great improvement in every respect. She was no longer the thin, wan little thing that had come from India. She had outgrown her clothes, which was a good sign, Eunice said. Elizabeth made a stand for good wearing ginghams and plain cloths for winter. "There's that gray cloth of mine that's too nice to hack around for every day. I could have it dyed, I suppose, but I've two nice black stuff dresses beside my silk, and that other one Chilian gave me that must have cost a sight of money; it's thick enough to almost stand alone. I can't bear those sleazy stuffs that come from India. But I've wished more than once that I had the money it cost, out at interest. And the cloth----" "It isn't a very pretty color," ventured Eunice timidly. "What does that matter for a child? It won't show dirt easily. And it is settled that she is going to school, I'm thankful to say." The dress in question was not a clear, pretty gray, but had an ugly yellow tint. "She certainly is rich enough to buy her own clothes, or have them bought for her. I'd dip that dress over a good deal darker brown. You know Chilian didn't like it for you, and he will not for her." Eunice was amazed at her own protest. The child had always been prettily attired. And more attention was being paid to children's clothes she noticed in church on Sunday, and after she had indulged in such sinful wanderings, she read the chapter in Isaiah where the prophet denounced the "round tires like the moon, the bonnets and the head bands, the mantles, and wimples, and crisping pins, and changeable suits of apparel," and other vanities, and predicted dire punishments for them. Mrs. Turner had called according to her proposal. She brought her little daughter Arabella, commonly called Bella. Cousin Chilian was out in the garden with Cynthia, and received her with his usual kindly cordiality, inviting them to walk into the house. The parlor shutters were tightly closed, and Mrs. Turner abhorred state parlors. Hers was always open, for guests were no rarity. "Why can't we sit out here a spell? It is so delightful to have this garden in view. And your clematis is a perfect show. Then let the children run around and get acquainted. How are the ladies?" She seated herself on the bench at the side of the porch. "I will call them," he said. "But--hadn't you better walk in?" "Oh, we can't stay very long. I've been waiting for the ladies to return my last call, but we were down in this vicinity, so I stopped. You see, I don't always stand on ceremony. And we have been so interested in your little girl. I saw her in Merrit's with Miss Winn." He summoned the ladies, and then he returned to the guests. The children were both down the path--Bella talking and gesticulating, and Cynthia laughing. Mrs. Turner was in nowise formal. She talked of Mr. Turner's business--he was a shipbuilder--of the rapid strides Salem was making; indeed one would hardly know it for old Salem of the witch days. And people's ideas had broadened out so, softened from their rigidity, "though some of the old folks are thinking the very trade we are so proud of is going to ruin our character and morals, and fill us with pride and vanity. But I say to Mr. Turner the people did their hard work and bore their deprivations bravely all through the Revolution, and we can't go back and make their lot easier by depriving ourselves of comforts, or even pleasures." There might be some casuistry in that, but there was truth as well. Then he asked if she knew of any nice schools for girls. Where did hers go? "Oh, to Madam Torrey's. That's up Church Street. Maybe it would be too far in bad weather, though our girls don't mind it. Alice is thirteen, but she's been there since she was eight, and Bella has been going these two years. The boys are at the Bertram School, and your neighbor Bentley Upham goes there. He's a nice boy. But Madam Torrey is a fine woman. She has an assistant, and a woman comes in to teach the French class. Then--I don't suppose everybody will approve of this, but there is going to be a dancing-class out of school hours, yet no one is compelled to send their children to that. There's fine needlework, too, and fancy knitting, indeed about all that it is necessary for a girl to know. And the children are all from good families; that is quite an important point." "I think I must walk over and see her." "Do. I am sure you will be pleased. The walk will be the only objection. Isn't she delicate?" "She wasn't well last winter. She took a cold. She was not used to our bleak winters. And there was her father's death. She had counted so much on his return." "It was very sad. She looks well now." Then the ladies made their appearance. Elizabeth apologized for Chilian not asking her into the parlor. "It looked inhospitable." "It was my fault. The stoop was so tempting. A shady porch in the afternoon is a luxury. We take our sewing out there; that is, Alice and I, and sometimes the guests. How lovely your vines are! And your garden is a regular show place, quite worth coming to see if there were no other charm. And, Miss Leverett, I hear you have been making the most beautiful white quilt there is in Salem." "Oh, no. But as nice as any. And it was a sight of work. I don't know as I'd do it again. I've no chick or child to leave it to." "May I come over some day and see it? Not that I shall do anything of the kind. With four big boys to mend for and the two girls, I have my hands full." Then they talked about putting up fruit and making jellies, and Mrs. Turner said she must go over to the Uphams. She heard that Polly was getting to be such a nice, smart girl, and had worked the bottom of her white frock and a round cape to match. Then she called Bella. "Oh, can't I go over with them?" pleaded Cynthia. Cousin Chilian nodded. Elizabeth rose stiffly and went in. Eunice pulled out her knitting. It was so lovely here. There were the warmth and perfume of summer and the rich fragrance of ripening fruits and grass mown for feed, not snipped with a lawn-mower, such things had not been heard of even in the rapidly improving Salem. "There are some countries where people live out of doors nearly all the time," began Eunice reflectively. "Well, they do a good deal in India. But I think this is in Europe. And this is so lovely, so restful. But I'm afraid you have affronted Elizabeth by not insisting Mrs. Turner should walk into the parlor. Though really--we had not returned her last call. I do wish Elizabeth could find some time to get out. I don't see why there should be so much work." "Couldn't you have some one to help?" "Well, it isn't just the cooking and kitchenwork. And no one could suit her there. She's up in that old garret toiling, and moiling, and packing away enough things to furnish an inn. We shall never want them. And there's your mother's, and some of your grandmother's, blankets." "The New England thrift is rather too thrifty sometimes," he commented dryly. Cynthia staid after Mrs. Turner made her adieus. Indeed, as it was nearing supper-time, he walked over for her. She and Betty were in the wide-seated swing and Ben was swinging them so high that Betty, used as she was to it, gave now and then little squeals. Chilian held up his hand and Ben let the "cat die," which meant the swing stopping of itself. "Oh, Mr. Leverett, can't Cynthy stay to tea? I'll run and ask mother." "Not to-day. She had better come home now." "Oh, dear!" cried Bentley disappointedly. "Yes, I had better go. And I've had such a lovely time. Cousin Chilian, can't I come over again?" How pretty she looked with her shining eyes, her rosy cheeks, and her entreating lips! What would she coax out of men as she grew older! "Oh, yes; any time they want you." "Well, we'd like her every day!" cried Ben eagerly. "And isn't it splendid that she's grown so well and strong, and can run and play, and have good out-of-doors times? Though I used to like it in the winter up in your room, and Mr. Price said he never knew a boy to improve so in Latin." Bentley made a graceful bow to Mr. Leverett. "Oh," said Cynthia, skipping along in exuberant joy, "children are nice, aren't they? You can't have much fun alone by yourself, and the days are so long when you go in to Boston." "I wonder if you would like to try school again?" "Yes, I think I would;" after a pause. "You see," with a gravity that sat oddly upon her, "I'm not so afraid as I was, and I have more sense. And I know things more evenly than I did. I can write now quite well, and I know most of the tables, though division does bother me. And I can spell all but the very difficult words. I don't think any one would laugh at me now." "No, they wouldn't," he answered decisively. "I shouldn't like little boys, but I wouldn't mind them as big as Bentley. And, oh, I wish we had a swing. And they have a real sailors' hammock, such as they have on shipboard. It's delightful under the trees." "I think we can manage that." "Well, if your head isn't tousled!" cried Elizabeth. "It looks like a brush heap. Get it fixed, for supper is all ready. Why didn't you stay?" the last ironically. "Cousin Chilian thought I had better not. They did want me to." "Are you sure they _wanted_ you to?" "Why, yes," she answered in ignorance of the sarcasm. She walked up and down the garden path with Cousin Chilian and asked about the school, was glad when she found Bella and her sister Alice went there. Now and then she gave two or three skips and pulled on the hand she held so tightly. He had never seen her in quite such glee, and how charming she was! "Chilian, bring that child in out of the dew. Next thing she'll be in for a winter's cold," said the severe voice. The interview with Madam Torrey was very satisfactory. Chilian asked Miss Winn to go out and buy what was needed and get it made. They went over to Mrs. Turner's one day and took the school in on their way. "When it rains Silas can take you and come for you. I think the walk will not tire you out." "Oh, no; I don't get tired out now." It was Miss Winn's place to look after the child, of course, but Elizabeth felt in some way defrauded. She wished Cynthia had been poor and dependent upon them. Then she would stand a chance to be brought up in a useful manner. Chilian took her to school the first morning. Miss Winn was to come for her. She had been rather shy at first. But Bella Turner told the girls about her, how she had been born in Salem, and gone to Calcutta when only a few months old, come and gone again in her father's ship, and he was Captain Leverett, and then returned to America. He was to come afterward, but he had died. And Mr. Chilian Leverett, who was something in Harvard College, was her guardian. And she was to have ever so much money when she was a young lady. Any other child might have been spoiled by the attentions lavished upon her. The girls thought her curly hair so pretty, and her hands were so small, with their dainty, tapering fingers. Then she found one of the girls, Lois Brinsmaid, lived in Central Avenue, so there was no further question of troubling any one. Cousin Chilian had given her a good foundation for study and she was eager for knowledge of all sorts, except that of the needle. Then autumn began to merge into winter and there were storms and bleak winds, and some days she staid at home. She caught light colds, but Chilian and Miss Winn were very watchful. She went to the Turners one afternoon and staid to tea, and the big boys hovered about her like bees. She was not forward or aggressive, but there was a sort of charming sweetness about her. When she raised her lovely eyes they seemed to appeal to every heart, though they never went very far with Cousin Elizabeth. One day she came home and found the house in a great state of excitement. Elizabeth had started to go down into the cellar with both hands full. She had been a little dizzy for several days, and meant to take a dose of herb tea, boneset being her great stand-by, when she could find time. Whether it was the vertigo, or she slipped, she lay there unconscious, and they sent for Doctor Prescott. Silas and the doctor carried her upstairs, and the latter brought her out of the faint. But when she started to stand up, she toppled over and fainted again. "There's something quite serious. Let us carry her up to her room, and you women undress her. Her legs are sound, so the trouble is higher up." Then he found her hip was broken, a bad thing at any time of life, but at her age doubly so. And he sent for Doctor Lapham to help him set it. It was very bad. They were still there when Chilian came home. "I'm afraid she's laid up for a year or so;" and the doctor shook his head ominously. "Do your very best for her," besought Chilian. He said to Eunice, "Now you must have some one. You can't carry on the house alone." "If it is the same to you, Chilian, I'd rather have a nurse. There's Mother Taft, who is good and strong, and used to nursing. She's willing to help about a little, too." "Just as you think best. I want every care taken of her." For a month it was a very serious matter. They thought the spine was somewhat injured as well. And Elizabeth knew they could never get on without her. "I expect I shall find the house in such a state when I do get about, it will take me all summer to right it. You never were as thorough as I could wish, Eunice." Miss Winn begged that she might be of service. She had so little to do, or to think about, that time hung heavy on her hands, now that Cynthia was in school. For then school hours were from nine to five. And the child was getting so handy caring for herself. She curled her hair and put on her clothes, brought her shoes down every evening for Silas to black, and sometimes wiped the tea dishes while Miss Winn washed them. Somehow there didn't seem so much work to do. Eunice didn't always have two kinds of cake for supper, nor a great shelf full of pies for Silas to take home. There was plenty of everything and no one complained. They found Mother Taft invaluable. She was about the average height, and had long arms, and strength according. Then she had a most excellent way with her. When Elizabeth groaned that they never could get on without her, and she must be up and about before everything went to "wrack and ruin," Mother Taft said: "The kitchen looks like a new pin. There's no signs of ruin that I can see. Meals are good, cake fine, house clean. When you get downstairs you'll think you haven't been out of the harness more'n a week." "A likely story," Elizabeth moaned. Cynthia went through March very successfully, but with the first warm spell in April she caught a cold and coughed, and Chilian was almost wild about her, his nerves having been worn somewhat by Elizabeth's mishap. But after ten days or so she came around all right and was eager for school again. She was sitting in her old place by the window late one afternoon and he had been reading some poems to her--a volume lately come from England. "Cousin Chilian," she said, "will you tell me what true relation we are?" "Why, what has put that in your head?" "I want to know." She said it persuasively. "Well, it isn't very near after all. My father and yours were cousins. My father was the son of the oldest brother, your father the son of the youngest, that stretched them quite far apart. When I wasn't much more than a baby Anthony came to live with us, and was like an elder brother to me. Father was very fond of him. But he would go to sea and he made a fine sailor and captain. Then he was married from here, and you were born here." "The girls sometimes say, 'your uncle.' I wonder if you would like to have me call you uncle?" Something in him protested. He could not tell what it was, unless an odd feeling that it made him seem older. He wished he were ten years younger, and he could give no reason for that either. "I think I like the 'cousin' best;" after some deliberation. "And it is so lovely to be dear to some one, very dear. I like Rachel, she's been almost a mother to me, and I like Cousin Eunice for her sweet ways. But I've no one of my very own, and so--I'm very glad to be dear to you. It is like a ship being anchored to something safe and strong." She came and put her arms about his neck and kissed him. He drew her down on his knee. She was her mother's child, and her mother had been dear to him, his first love, his only love so far. Oh, how would the garden get made and the house cleaned, the blankets and the winter clothing aired and put away, those in use washed? Eunice and Miss Winn went up in the garret one day and swept and dusted, not giving a whole week to it. "Now," said Mother Taft, "I'm going to take a holiday off. I'm tired of puttering round in the sick room, and she's so much better now that she doesn't keep one on the jump. And I'm going to wash them there blankets and you can pack them away, so there'll be one thing less to worry about." "But Silas' wife would come and do it. And a holiday! Why don't you go off somewhere----" "I want to do it." And do it she did. Some way the house did get cleaned. "After a fashion," Elizabeth said. And the garden was made. Chilian and Eunice trimmed up roses. Cynthia and Miss Winn planted seeds. There were always some things that wintered over--sweet Williams, lilies of various sorts, pinks, laurels, some spiræas, snowball and syringas, hosts of lilacs that made a fragrant hedge. Cynthia thought it had never been so lovely before. She wore a nosegay at her throat, and in her belt just a few; she had the fine taste that never overloaded. She and Cousin Chilian used to walk up and down the fragrant paths after supper and no one fretted at them about the dew. Sometimes Rachel or Eunice would bring out a dainty scarf. And how many things they found to talk about. She loved to dwell on the times with her father, and it seemed as if she remembered a great deal more about her mother than she did at first, but she never imagined it was Cousin Chilian's memory that helped out hers. She had enjoyed the school very much. There were no high up "isms" or "ologies" for girls in those days. She learned about her own country, for already there were some histories written, and the causes that led to the war. Some of the girls had grandmothers who had lived through those exciting years, and made the relation of incidents much more interesting than any dry written account that was mostly dates and names. What heroes they had been! And the old _Mayflower_ story and John Alden, and others who were to inspire a poet's pen. Then there was the dread story of the witchcraft that had led Salem astray. Cousin Chilian would never have it mentioned, and had taken away several books he did not want her to see. But the girls had gone to some of the old places, where witches had been taken from their homes and cast into jail, the Court House where they had been tried, and Gallows Hill, that most people shunned even now. One rainy evening, after her lessons had been studied, Cynthia went downstairs. Rachel had been fomenting her face for the toothache and was lying down. Cousin Chilian had gone to a town-meeting, and the house seemed so still that she almost believed she might see the ghost or witch of the stories she had heard. No one was in the sitting-room, or the kitchen proper, but she heard voices in what was called the summer kitchen, a roughly constructed place with a stone chimney and a great swinging crane. Here they did much of the autumn work, for Elizabeth was quite a stickler for having a common place to save something nicer. Mother Taft always smoked a pipe of tobacco in the evening. "It soothed her," she said, after her tussle of fixing her patient for the night, "and made her sleep better." "And it's my opinion if Miss 'Lisbeth could just have a good smoke at night 'twould do her more good than the doctor's powders." "Why, Cynthy!" Cousin Eunice exclaimed. "I was lonesome. Rachel's gone to sleep, Cousin Eunice--were there such things as witches over a hundred years ago?" Eunice glanced at Mother Taft. Witchcraft was a tabooed subject, yet it lingered in more than one imaginative mind, though few would confess a belief in it. "Well, people may talk as they like, but there's many queer things in the world. Now there's that falling sickness, as they call it. Jabez Green has two children that roll on the floor, and froth at the mouth, and their eyes bulge most out of their heads. They're lacking, we all know. But when they come out of the fit they tell queer things that they saw, and I do suppose it was that way then. They do act as if they were bewitched." We know this misfortune now as epilepsy, but medical science in the earlier century did not understand that, nor incipient insanity. "It was very strange," said Eunice rather awesomely. "And Mr. Parris was a minister and a good man, yet it broke out in his family." "But he had them slaves, and in their own land black people do awful things to each other. But it was strange; again, after his wife was accused, Governor Phipps ordered there should be no more punished and all set free, and then the thing stopped." "And it wasn't real witchcraft?" said Cynthia. "Well, I wouldn't undertake to say. There were witches in Bible times and they kept themselves mighty close, for they were not to be allowed to live. And Saul had a hard time getting anything out of the witch of Endor, you know, Miss Eunice." Eunice nodded. They were trenching on forbidden ground. "My grandmother believed in them and she was a good God-fearing woman, too. You see what made it worse for Salem was their sending so many here for trial from the places round. Grandfather lived way up above Topsfield, had a farm there and 'twas woods all around. No one troubled them then, but afterward--well, they'd cleared the woods and built a road and new houses were put up around, for some people were glad enough to get out of Salem. There was a woman named Martha Goodno, who had been in prison, and people were shy of her. Grandmother had two cows, and folks turned them out in the woods then. One of them went in Martha's garden, but she spied her out and drove her off before much damage was done. The fence had been broken down and she laid it to the cow, but people said it had been down for days. Well, something got the matter with the cow. She gave good rich milk and mother saved it for butter. But when she churned there came queer streaks in it that looked like blood. She doctored the cow, although it seemed well enough. One day a neighbor was in and the same thing happened. 'Throw some in the fire,' said the neighbor, 'and if you hear of any one being burned you'll know who is the witch.' So grandmother threw two dippers full in the fire and she said it made an awful smell. The rest she dumped out of doors, she wouldn't feed it to the pigs. About an hour afterward another neighbor came in. Grandmother made a salve that was splendid for burns and cuts. 'Mis' Denfield,' she says, 'won't you come over to Martha Goodno's and bring your pot of salve. She's burned herself dreadfully drawin' the coals out of the oven, set her dress on fire just at the waist.' So mother went over and found it was a pretty bad, sure enough burn, and she was groaning just fit to die. Mother spread a piece of linen and laid it on and left her some salve. 'What did I tell you?' says mother's neighbor, and they nodded their heads. But the queer thing was that after that the cow was all right and she never had any more trouble. "After she was well she took a spite against another neighbor, who used to spin flax and sell the thread. Then her flax took to cutting up queer, and would break off, and turn yellow, and trouble her dreadfully. Mother was there one afternoon when it bothered so. 'Just throw a handful in the fire,' says mother. 'Fire's purifying;' and she did. They sent to mother again for salve, for Martha had scalded her right hand. Then the folks talked it over and a letter was written and tucked under her door, warning her to move, and the next-door man bought the place. I've heard grandmother tell this over--she lived to be ninety, and she was a good Christian woman, and she never added nor took away one iota. There, I oughtn't have told all this before the child; she's white as a ghost." "You must go to bed this minute," exclaimed Eunice. "I'll go up with you." CHAPTER XI THE VOICE OF A ROSE There were some marvellous ghost stories in those days, and haunted houses as well. The society of Psychical Research would have found many queer things if it had existed at that time. The sailors spun strange yarns over the power we call telepathy now. Many of the families had a retired captain or disabled first mate, or supercargo, who had seen mysterious appearances and heard warning voices. And it recalled to the little girl some of the stories she had heard in India that she pieced out of vague fragments. Maybe there were curious influences no one could explain. Elizabeth improved a little. She had been moved from cot to bed, but now they packed her in a big chair and pushed her over to the window where she could see the vegetable garden and the chicken yard. They had not had very good luck at the hatching this season. The hens had missed Elizabeth's motherly care. She had trained them to an amusing habit of obedience, and the little chickens were her delight. Was she never to be out among them again? One day Cynthia came up with two roses in a glass, most exquisite ones at that. "Cousin Elizabeth," she began, "do you remember the little rosebush you put in my garden last summer? We thought it would die. It came out beautifully in the spring and these are the first roses that bloomed. I thought you ought to have them. Are you never going to get well enough to walk around the garden? Cousin Eunice has kept it so nice." Elizabeth Leverett's heart was touched and she swallowed over a lump in her throat. She had taken up the rose from a place where it had been smothered with those of larger growth and given it to the child who had begged for "a garden of her very own." She had not supposed it would live. And that Cynthia should bring her the firstfruits! "I'm obliged to you," she returned huskily. "They are very beautiful." And she wondered the child had not given them to Chilian. "I wish you liked a few flowers every day," the little girl said wistfully. "Well--I might;" reluctantly. "They are so lovely. The world is so beautiful. It's very hard to be ill in summer, in winter one wouldn't mind it so much. But I am glad you can sit up." Was it tears that Elizabeth winked away? She had many serious thoughts through these months of helplessness. She had always measured everything by the strict line of duty, of usefulness. There was a virtue in enduring hardness as a good soldier, and the harder it was the more virtue it held in it. Her room was plain, almost to bareness. There had been a faded patchwork top quilt at first, until Mother Taft insisted upon having something nicer. But it had to be folded up carefully at sundown, when the likelihood of calls was over. And she did put one of the new rugs on the floor. "That's beginning to go," Mrs. Taft said. "Some one will catch their foot in it and have a bad fall." "It could be mended, I suppose." "Yes. There's a new one needed in the kitchen. I'll sew it up for that. Land sakes! you've got enough in this house to last ten lifetimes!" Friends came in to sit with her and brought their work. Sometimes she sewed a little, but drawing out her needle hurt her back after a while. She read her Bible and Baxter's "Saints' Rest" And she wondered a little what the other world would be like. She had never thought of heaven with joy--there was the judgment first. And now that she could begin to sit up it did prefigure recovery. Most schools had kept open all the year round, but now the higher ones were giving a month's vacation. Altogether it had been a happy year to Cynthia. She had really been adored at school. Her frocks were admired, she let the girls curl her hair, usually she wore it tied in a bunch behind--not unlike the queue. Then she had some rings that she coaxed Rachel to let her wear, it was such a pleasure to lend them to the girls. She was learning what was considered necessary for a girl in those days; a good deal more with Cousin Chilian. She kept her love for the Latin and often read to him. She began to draw and paint flowers, she joined the dancing-class, which was a delight to her; but Chilian suggested she should not mention it to Elizabeth. She pirouetted up and down the path like a fairy, and he loved to watch her. There had been parties among the girls, but he would rather not have her go, it was a bad thing for children to be up so late. She went to take tea now and then. The Turners were very fond of her and the Uphams wanted her once a week. She wondered if she might ever ask any one to tea. Then they planned what they would do in this wonderful vacation. Go off for day's rides, take sails up and down, there were so many places. She was brimming over with joy. Chilian was called up in the night by Mother Taft. "She's had a stroke. And she seemed so smart yesterday. She even laughed over some school stories Cynthia told. That child's brought her flowers every morning, and she's softened so much to her. I really think she's been getting religion, as one may say, and being prepared." Chilian heard the stertorous breathing. The eyes were half open and rolled up, her face was drawn. He took the hand. It was cold and heavy. "I'll go for the doctor. I think the end has come." Dr. Prescott said the same thing, adding with a slow turn of the head, "She will not last long." What should he do with Cynthia? He remembered how careful her father had been to shield her. She must not see Elizabeth, she must not confront death in this awesome fashion. When they came to breakfast he said: "Cynthia, wouldn't you like to go in to Boston with me this morning?" "Oh, it would be splendid!" She clapped her hands in delight. "Well, Rachel must get you ready. We will take the stage. It goes early now." Of course, she was full of excitement. It had been planned as one of the month's outings, but to take it as the first! Cousin Chilian was always thinking up such nice things. "Oh," she cried, tying the big Leghorn hat down, making a great bow under her chin, "I must get my flowers for Cousin Elizabeth." When she came in she would have flown upstairs, but Rachel stopped her. "Miss Elizabeth is asleep. She had a bad spell in the night and the doctor doesn't want her disturbed. I'll take them." "Oh!" She looked disappointed. "Tell her good-bye and that I was sorry not to come in and say it. And give her the flowers. I hope she will be better to-night." What a great thing it was to go off in the stage! It was a fine morning with an easterly breeze. To be sure, the roads were dusty, but travellers were not so dainty in those days. Cynthia had a dust cloak of some thin material that shielded her white frock. There were three men and two women. They sat on the middle seat, two of the men on front with the driver, the other back with the ladies. Presently the driver blew a long toot on his horn and they came to a little town with a tavern, as they were called then, at its very entrance. Two of the passengers left, one came in. The horses had a drink and on they went over hill and dale, through great farms, where there were not more than two or three houses in sight. The stage stopped for a man who gave a loud halloo, and he climbed in. Then the horn gave another loud signal. So it went on. Some places were very pretty, great fields of corn waving in the sunshine, potatoes, stubble where grain had been cut, stretches of woodland, high, rather rough hills, then towns again. The sun went under a cloud, which made it pleasanter. The passengers changed now and then. One woman told her next neighbor "she was goin' in to Boston to shop, because things were cheaper now. She always went after the rush was over. There were cambrics, she heard, for one and ninepence, and cotton cloth home-made was so much cheaper than the imported, but you had to bleach it. And little traps that you couldn't get at a country store." Cynthia was tired and sleepy when they reached their journey's end, which was Marlborough Street, where Cousin Giles had an office. "Well! well! well!" he ejaculated in surprise. "Why, Miss Cynthia Leverett, I'm glad to see you. Have you come to town to shop?" Chilian made a little sign. "She has a whole month's vacation and we are going to fill it up with journeys, taking Boston first." "That's right. We shall have lots to show her. You'll hardly want to go back to Salem. It was a long warm ride, wasn't it? Chilian, take off her hat. Don't you want a drink?" "I am thirsty," she admitted. He fixed a glass of lemonade, and lemons were dear at that period--scarce, too. While she was sipping it, being refreshed in every pulse, the two men went down to the end of the room for a talk. "She's dreadfully disfigured," Chilian said in a low tone. "And Elizabeth wasn't a bad-looking woman. The doctor thinks she can't live but a few days, her body is growing cold rapidly. I'd like to have the child out of it all. Death is a great shock and very mysterious to a child." "Oh, I'll be glad to keep her, if she will stay content. I wish you could have brought that woman with you. Poor Elizabeth! How Eunice will miss her. Chilian, you've been like a son to those women. Women ought to marry and have children of their own, but children are not always kind. Yes. After you're rested we'll go home. I'm going to change my office, get nearer to the business centre, only this is so pleasant with a nice outlook." "You ought to retire." "Oh, what would I do? Like that Roman fellow, buy a farm? I don't know a bit about farming and don't want to. There's so much going on here." Presently they returned to the little girl, who was quite refreshed, and then they went out, as it would be dinner-time presently. Cousin Giles lived in Cambridge Street in quite an imposing row, though it had no such spacious grounds as at Salem. An immaculate black man opened the door and took the men's hats. "Ask Mrs. Stevens to come down," Cousin Giles said. Mrs. Stevens seemed a great lady. Eudora Castleton's mother was like this, always looking as if she was dressed for a party. She had a pretty silk gown, with some ruffles about the bottom, short enough to show her clocked silk stockings. The waist was short also, the square neck filled in with lace, and great balloon sleeves--so large at the top they came almost up to her ears. "This is the little girl who came from India, that I told you about, and who is going to be a great lady some day. When she gets older we'll have to have her down here to Boston, and give balls and parties for her, and pick out a fine lover for her; hey, Cynthia?" Cynthia turned scarlet. "I think you must be warm and tired with the long stage ride; wouldn't you like to come upstairs with me?" Cynthia rose as Cousin Chilian looked approval, and followed up the stairway, where her feet sank in the carpet. There were several rooms, with the air blowing through delightfully, and there was fragrance everywhere from vases of flowers. Mrs. Stevens took off her hat and inspected her. She was going to be a big heiress and a pretty girl in the bargain, piquant with a slightly foreign look, though perhaps it was more in her manner. "Susan," she called to a girl sewing in the next room, "come and wash this little visitor's hands and face. She has come all the way from Salem this morning. I wish we had a fresh frock for you, but we have no little girls." The voice was so soft and charming that Cynthia looked up with a kind of admiring smile. Susan took off her frock, bathed her face and hands with some perfumed water, brushed out her hair, and said, "What lovely hair you have, and so much of it. A queen might envy you!" The idea of a queen wanting anything she had! Oh, how nice and refreshed she felt. Susan shook out the frock and put it on again, pulled out the sleeves, smoothed the wrinkled skirt, and took her in the next room. "It rests one so much. Are you hungry? We shall have dinner in half an hour." "Oh, no," Cynthia said. "And--and I am very much obliged to Susan." "Come and sit here. Tell me how the aunties are--the one with the broken limb." "I think she isn't so well. Yesterday she was so much improved. The doctor was there this morning." "Poor lady! She has been ill a long while. And you are quite at home in Salem, I suppose? You had a long journey. Did you like India?" "Father was there;" with a sweet, attractive simplicity. "And some of it was very beautiful. Oh, I almost froze the first winter here, but last winter I didn't mind. And the sleigh-riding was splendid." "Are there many little girls to be friends with?" "Oh, I go to a nice school. And we have so many funny plays and dancing once a week. I didn't tease about it, though I wanted to go, and Cousin Chilian said I might. It's queer, but in India they come and dance for you, and you pay them. But it is lovely to do it for yourself;" and she made some graceful motions with her hands, while her beautiful eyes were alight with emotion, as if she heard the music. "Did you ever want to go back?" "At first. But when I heard that father had gone away, he had meant to come to Salem, but----" she made a pause, "mother was there in India. Only the bodies, you know, the other part that thinks and feels is in heaven. He wanted mother so much. He used to talk about her. And now I am going to live in Salem with Cousin Chilian all my life long." How simply sweet she was, with no self-consciousness. Then they were summoned to dinner. The elegant black servant waited on them, and that suggested India again. They went out on a back porch and sat in the shade. Cousin Giles found an opportunity to explain the matter to Mrs. Stevens, and after that the men went out for a while. Quite in the afternoon there were calls from stylishly-dressed ladies, and cake and cool drinks were brought in. Then Cousin Chilian told her that he would like her to stay all night and he would come in to-morrow. She didn't want to a bit. "Why, I would be very quiet and not disturb Cousin Elizabeth," she said, with beseeching eyes. "Will you not do it to please me?" She choked down a great lump. "Oh, yes," she answered in a low tone, without looking up. But it seemed very queer to her to be left this way. There was company in the evening--quite a party playing cards. She had a pretty story book to read until Susan came to put her to bed. And what a delightful little bed it was, like her little pallet at home, so much nicer than the big bed at Salem. She would not show that she was homesick, for so many nice things were being done for her. A note came from Chilian--Cousin Elizabeth was very ill, and he hoped she would be content. Some clothes were sent for her, some of her very best ones, and she was glad to have them. There were so many things to see in Boston, really much more than at Salem. They were putting up some fine public buildings. And there was Bunker Hill and Copp's Hill, and, down near the bay, Fort Hill. There seemed little rivers running all about and submerged lands. There were many other entertainments and her days were full. Mrs. Stevens sent out some cards and seven or eight young girls came in and chatted quite like the grown-up ladies, asking her about Salem, and being not a little surprised that she had lived in India. They had a pretty sort of half tea, cakes and delicacies after the thin bread and butter, and a most delightful cool drink that seemed to have all flavors in it. One of the girls played on the spinet afterward. So she had her first party at Cousin Giles', instead of Salem. Notes came from Cousin Chilian, and at last the welcome news that he was coming down for her. She had come to like Cousin Giles very much. He was so different from Chilian--breezy and rather teasing--and, oh, what would Cousin Elizabeth have said to his fashion of getting things about, putting papers or books on chairs, mislaying his glasses and his gloves, and she would think the fine furniture, and the servants, and the little feasts awfully extravagant. Poor Elizabeth! She had never come back to consciousness. She had shrunk intensely from the last moment when she would have to face death and the judgment, though she had been striving all her life to prepare for it. But God had mercifully spared her that, the two worlds had touched and merged with each other and left her to God. There had been a quiet funeral, though it was well attended, but the coffin was closed and a pall thrown over it, for the poor face had never recovered its natural look. All this was softened to Cynthia, as she sat with Cousin Chilian's arm about her. She had the sweet remembrance of that last day, and the smile that somehow had made the wrinkled face pretty. It had been thoughtful and tender in Cousin Chilian to spare her the rest. They went over to Cambridge and he took her through the place that was to be so much grander before she was done with life. And here was the house where he had lived through the week, going home to spend Sundays, for his father was alive then. And he told her stories about old Boston, some quaintly funny, but she was rather proud that Salem had been the first capital of the State. "I've had such a nice time," she said with her adieu. "Every day has been full of pleasure. I thank you both very much." She was to come again, and again, they rejoined cordially. "What a nice child!" Cousin Giles said. "She doesn't seem to consider what an heiress she is. And she's enough like Chilian to be his own child. He always had that dainty way with him, like a woman, and everything must be fine and nice, yet he never was ostentatious. She'll make a charming young woman. I wish I could persuade Chilian to come to Boston." Chilian had driven in with the carriage. There had been a shower in the night and the travelling was delightful. He had missed his little girl so much, yet he knew it had been better to save her the poignancy of the sad occurrence. So her father had thought in his trusting appeal. CHAPTER XII CHANGES IN THE OLD HOUSE There was not as much change in household affairs as Cynthia supposed there would be. Elizabeth had been laid by so long that her place at the table had been filled by Eunice. Indeed, the former had an unfortunate habit of running out in the kitchen to see to something, then returning, pouring a cup of tea, passing some article of food, then disappearing again. It had grown on her, the belief that she must be everywhere or something would go wrong. It did annoy Chilian. And no one hustled up the dishes when you had eaten the last crumb of cake. He liked to linger over the table. Eunice was very glad to see her. Rachel took her wrap and her parcel upstairs, for supper had been waiting. Eunice poured the tea, Rachel passed the eatables, and they were both eager to hear how it had fared with the little girl. "It's been just splendid! Mrs. Stevens is--well, she is grand, and, oh, you ought to see the beautiful gowns she wears; but she doesn't hold you way off. You can come up close and lean on her shoulder or her lap. They were both so good. And, look! Cousin Giles would buy me these two rings;" and she held up her hand laughingly. "And an elegant necklace. I told him there were so many things here that were my mother's, but he wouldn't mind. And slippers! There's white, and a kind of gray, and a bronze, and a red pair. The little girls wear them when they come from school and go out to companies. Oh, Cousin Chilian, doesn't any one play on the spinet? I'd like to learn." "It's very old. It was mother's. I think we must have a new one. And you can learn." "Oh, I shall be so glad." Mrs. Taft was out in the kitchen. "Now you all go your ways," she began. "'Taint nothing to clear off the supper table." They sat out on the front porch. But through the talk Cynthia kept thinking of poor Cousin Elizabeth and feeling sorry she had not enjoyed more of the pleasures of life. Was there so much real virtue in making life hard and cold? But there were some girls in school who were very much afraid of dancing and reading story-books. Truth to tell, as Chilian listened, he came to experience a queer feeling--he would have scouted the idea of jealousy about Cousin Giles, but that he should have devoted himself so much to her and taken her about, wanted to buy trinkets for her and all that! There was still a week of vacation left. They would go somewhere to-morrow. He had asked Mrs. Taft to stay with them. "Well, I can't exactly promise. You see, I like to 'wrastle' with things and fight off the worst. Though I hadn't much hope of 'Lisbeth when the doctor said her spine was hurt. That's a kind of queer hidden thing that even doctors can't see into. And the poor creature suffered a good deal. My, but she was spunky and was bound not to die, and I fought for her all I could. But the last few weeks there was a change. She liked Cynthy to come in with the posies and say something bright. And now it's all done and over, and she was a good upright woman in the old-fashioned way. So I'll stay a spell till Miss Eunice gets used to the change, and when I see another good fight somewhere, you mustn't have hard feelings if I go." They went out the next morning and found a boat going up to Plum Island. It was like going to sea to go around Rockport Point. Captain Green declared "he wan't much on passengers, but he had a nice cabin and an awning on the for'ard deck, and there was a woman and some children whose husband living up there had bespoke passage." It was a fine day with the right sort of wind. Oh, how splendid it was as they went out oceanward. She had been on the water such a very little since her long voyage. Mrs. Halcom had three children and a baby. She was a plain, commonplace body, who had been living up to North Salem, but her folks were Newburyport people and she should be glad to get in sight and sound of them once again. Chilian had brought a book along, Ben Johnson's Plays, and now and then he met with such a charming line or two he must read it to her. There were some new poets coming to the fore as well, but he knew most of the older ones. Oh, he must get back his youth for her sake. Cousin Giles was ever so much older. She was interested in the ship as well and talked to Captain Green. He had so many funny nautical terms, provincialisms, that she had to inquire what some of the words meant. For most of the early people of New England had not dropped into the careless modes of speech that were to come later on and be adopted as a sort of patois. They read their Bibles a good deal and the older divines, and if their speech was a little stilted it had a certain correctness. Then Chilian Leverett was rather fastidious in this respect. The wind filled the sails and they skimmed along merrily. Now the sea was green and so clear you could see the fish disporting themselves. Then the sun tinted it with gold and threw up diamond, amethyst, and emeralds, taunting one with treasures. There are new names along the coast, though a few of the old ones remain. They passed Gloucester, Thatcher's Island, rounded Rockport, where in the inside harbor they had to unload part of their cargo. Then on to Plum Island, where the rest were set ashore and the woman and her children. Some few things were taken on board, but they were to stop at Gloucester, going down for the return cargo. They walked about a little and bought some ripe, luscious dewberries and fruit. "How queer it would be to live on an island and have to take your boat when you went anywhere," and Cynthia laughed gayly. "People do, farther up. There are a great many islands on the coast of Maine, and fishermen are living on them." "And in Boston Harbor Cousin Giles took us out. It's funny that they don't float off. Do they go 'way down to the bottom of the sea?" "I think they must. Sometimes one does disappear." "Suppose you were living on it. And you saw the water coming up all around you and you couldn't get away----" Her eyes filled with a kind of terror. "Oh, you would have some boats." "But if it happened in the night?" "We won't go and live on an island," he said with a smile. It was rougher going back, but not bad enough to cause any alarm. The wind had died down, but the swells were coming in. They stopped at Gloucester and took on some boxes and great planks, and several pieces of furniture. "There's enough old truck in Salem now," declared Captain Green ungraciously. "'F I had my way I'd turn it out on the Common and put a match to it. Now there's the Hibbins--came over in 1680 and brought their housen goods. There wan't any way of makin' 'em then but just outen rough logs. An' now the old granma'am's died and 'twas her mother's, I b'lieve, and Mis' Hibbins she's just gone crazy over it. And they're buildin' a fine new house. Strange how Salem's buildin' up! Those East Ingy traders do make lots of money. But before I'd have that old truck in my nice new house!" And the captain gave a snort of disdain. He did not dream that before another hundred years had passed there would be comparative fortunes made in the old truck. "We'll be a little late gettin' in, but there'll be a moon. Lucky wind ain't dead agin us." How good the supper tasted, for Cynthia was very hungry. And then they went on and on, hugging the shore, the captain said, until it was a kind of shadowy waving blur, but on the other side most beautiful. It made her think of coming from India, but she was glad to see the vague outline of the shore. The captain was much surprised that she had been such a traveller. He had been to New York and all around Long Island, and up as far as Nova Scotia. The Bay of Fundy was wonderful, with its strange dangerous tides. "We will go there another summer," Chilian said, holding her hand, and she returned the soft pressure. "I was 'most afraid something had happened." Eunice had gone down the street to meet them. "But it's clear as a bell and no wind to speak of, and the captains of the coasting vessels know every inch of the way." "Only just lovely things happened. It's been splendid. But I'm hungry again. Can't I have a second supper?" How different she looked from the little girl who had come to him for care and friendship. And he had been rather unwilling to accept her. She was growing tall, and--yes, really pretty. They had one more excursion to Winter Island. Why, it seemed as if they were building ships enough for the whole world. And there were the fisheries, and the curious musical singing, not really words, but sort of detached sounds that floated off in a weird kind of way. After that school again. She was glad to see the girls, and Madam Torrey gave her a warm welcome, saying, "Why, Miss Cynthia, how tall you have grown!" "I'm very glad," she said smilingly. "All the Leveretts are tall, but I don't ever want to be very large." "And she had really been to Boston! Was it so much handsomer than Salem? They had a real theatre, and parties, and balls. Sadie Adams' big sister was going to spend the whole winter there." Chilian Leverett decided to alter his house a little. The two rooms at the back had always seemed crowded up, though Elizabeth preferred a separate one so long as they connected. But he had the memory of the poor drawn face, as he had seen it the morning of her seizure. Wouldn't Eunice recall it as well? "I think I will make some alterations," he announced to her. "I'll push that upstairs room out over the summer kitchen and make it a good deal larger. While they are doing it, Eunice, you had better go over the other side and let Mrs. Taft take your room." She assented, though she thought the house and the rooms were large enough for the few people in it. Cynthia was interested in her studies, and the girls, and the new books coming in. For now Sir Walter Scott was having a great hearing, and there were some new poets. It was not expected that people would be at all gay when there had been a death in the family, so Cynthia felt compelled to decline her few invitations. The new room was finished and made much brighter with the two added windows. The walls were painted a soft gray, with a warm tint. There were yards and yards of new rag carpet up in the garret, sewed in bagging to keep out moths. Of course, it might as well be used. The old bedstead was taken out and though the one substituted was quite as old, it was very much prettier, with its carved posts and the tester frame from which depended white curtains. Some of the other furniture was changed and it made a very pretty room, so Eunice came back to it very much pleased, though not quite sure so much comeliness was best for the soul. At Christmas Chilian took the little girl down to Boston on a special invitation. There were two visitors a little older than herself, one whose father was a representative from the State, the other from New York. Washington was not much thought of in those days. Other cities had yielded their claims unwillingly, and there had been much talk of its being set in a morass. Mrs. President Adams had described her infelicities very graphically. The rooms were not finished, and she took one of the parlors for an adjunct to the laundry to dry the wash in. New York considered itself the great head for fashion and gayety, Boston for education and refinement, and she too, had quite an extensive port trade. But Giles Leverett thought the little girl from Salem was quite as pretty and well bred as Boston girls, and really she never seemed at loss now, and was seldom overtaken with a fit of shyness. They had a gay, happy time, with a regular dancing party, which filled Cynthia with the utmost delight. And though the winter seemed cold and bleak spring came again, as it always does. Mrs. Taft had gone away to another bad case. Eunice and Miss Winn kept the house. There had been quite an entertaining episode with Miss Winn. A very prosperous man, who lived up on the North side, and had a fine house and five children, asked her to be his wife, thinking she would make such an excellent mother for girls. It was supposed at that time that no woman could refuse a good offer of marriage. "Consider it well," said Mr. Leverett. "I don't know how we could give you up, and, of course, you could not take Cynthia. Her father made a generous provision for you, and I think he chose wisely for his child. But----" "I don't know that I want to begin over again," and she gave a peculiar smile. "Five seems quite an undertaking when you have had only one. And you have taken so much the charge of her." "But you see, now she will need a woman's guidance more than ever. She has outgrown childhood. I see the change in her every day. Eunice could not supervise her clothes and her pleasures, times have changed so much. I want her to be very happy and have a life like other girls----" She thought she could give up the prospect good as it was, won by that persuasive voice. And she had come to really love Miss Eunice, who was blossoming in a new phase now that there was nothing to restrain her natural sweetness. "I promised her father to do the best I could for her. I love her very much. I enjoy the home here. I do not think I could be any happier. And I am so used to owning myself that I do not feel disposed to give up my liberty. If I had no prospect, I might consider it. And Cynthia will need some one as she grows older to see that she makes the right sort of acquaintances and guide her a little." "Then since all is agreeable we can count on your staying. You cannot imagine my own thankfulness;" and he pressed her hand cordially. "Isn't it funny!" cried Cynthia. "Why, Margaret Plummer goes to Madam Torrey's, but she is very--well, I don't know just how to describe it, only she said once that they would all make the house too hot to hold a step-mother. And, oh, dear Rachel, I couldn't bear to have anybody ugly to you. And then you know we couldn't give you up. Cousin Chilian said so, and Miss Eunice cried." Miss Winn winked some tears out of her eyes, though she tried to smile. It was very comforting to a woman without kith or kin to feel so welcome in a household. Cynthia was sitting on the step of the porch one May night when the moon was making shifting shadows through the trees and silvering the paths. Chilian was studying the face, and wondering a little what was flitting through the brain that now and then gave it such intentness. "What are you thinking about?" he asked. "Oh, Cousin Chilian!" She flushed a lovely, rosy glow. "Building an air castle." "Is it very airy? So far that it would be a journey for another person to reach it?" "Oh, part of it is near by. The other is what could be, maybe;" wistfully. "Can't I hear about it?" "Cousin Chilian, why are the parlors always shut up, and why don't you have people coming and going, and saying bright things, and talking about the improvements and--and Napoleon and the wars in Europe, and the new streets and houses, and, oh, ever so many things?" He looked at the tightly closed shutters. In his father's time there were visitors, discussions, playing at whist and loo, and little suppers. She wouldn't care for that, of course. Yet he remembered that she had been interested in the talks at Boston. "Why, yes; the rooms could be opened. Only we have grown so at home in the sitting-room, and you and I in the study." "At the Dearborns' they keep the house all open and lighted up, as they do in Boston. And they ask in young people and have plays, and charades, and funny conundrums----" Oh, she was young and should have this kind of life. How should he set about it? He must ask Miss Winn. But he ventured rather timidly, for a man. "Would you like--well, some girls in to tea? They ask you so often. And there is no reason why we should all be hermits." She sprang up and clasped her arms about his neck. "Oh, I just should. At first when Cousin Elizabeth went away, and the lessons were difficult, and it was winter, but now everything seems so joyous----" "Why, yes; we must talk to Miss Winn about it, Cynthia," and his voice dropped to a tender inflection. "I want you to feel this is your home and you must have all the joy and pleasures of youth. You need never be afraid. I've been a rather dull old fellow----" "Oh, you're not old. You're not as old as Cousin Giles, and ever so much handsomer. The girls at school think," she flushed and paused, "that you were so good to get me the pony and the pretty wagon." She was going to say something much more flattering, but delicacy stopped her. "My dear," he said gravely, "I was glad to make you the gift, but I want you to know that there is a considerable sum of money of your own, and your father wished you to enjoy it. Whatever you want and is proper for you to have, I shall be glad to get, and to do. For I have no little girl but you." "Would it be wicked and selfish if I said I was glad?" The arms tightened a little. How soft they were! And her hair brushed his cheek. It always seemed to have a delicate subtle perfume. "No, dear. You and I are curiously alone in the world. I haven't a first cousin, neither have you." "And a whole houseful of folks is so nice," she said wistfully. He had been very well content with his books and his college friends. But women were different, at least--those who shut out everybody narrowed their lives fearfully. "We will try and have some." "And you must like it. If you do not, the greatest pleasure will be taken out of it for me." "I shall like it;" encouragingly. "How good you are to me. Father said I must love you and obey you, for you would know what would be best for me." Then they sat in silence, the contentment of affection. He spoke to Miss Winn the next day. Afterward they went into the parlor and opened the shutters. It was stately, grand, and gloomy. Before Anthony Leverett had thought of sending his little girl to his care he had forwarded to Chilian a gift "for old remembrance' sake," he said, of a very handsome Oriental rug. Floors of the "best rooms" had been polished until you could see your shadow in them. Chilian did not like the noise or the continual trouble. So he laid down the rug and bought one for the other room. But the heavy curtains, with their silken linings, staid up year after year. He noticed those at Giles' house were much lighter and in soft colors. And his furniture was not so massive. "I wish we could change things a little. That old sofa might go up in the new room. It was grand enough in my father's time, with its borders of brass-headed tacks, and its flat, hard seat. Two of these chairs might come up in my room." "I wish we could find a place for the lovely sort of cabinet that Cynthia's father sent over. I keep it covered from dust and scratches. She will be glad to have it when she has a house of her own." "One of the rooms ought to be hers--well, both," he added reflectively. "The rugs are elegant. Yes, lighter curtains would change it a good deal. How very handsome the mantels are with all their carving." They would have adorned a modern house. They went nearly up to the ceiling with small shelves and nooks, on which were vases and ornaments such as bring fortunes now. "And--about the party?" "Oh, that will be only a girls' tea--her schoolmates where she has been. Next year will be time enough for the party;" with a little laugh. So the two spacious rooms were quite remodelled and modernized, and the gloomy appearance was a thing of the past. Why shouldn't he spend his money on her? There was no one else. He had not lost sight of Anthony Drayton. The father had been exigent. Anthony, being the eldest, must take the farm when he was done with it. The lad had worked his time out. Cousin Chilian had offered him enough to take him to a preparatory school where he would be fitted for college. He had come in to Boston and Chilian had been attracted to the manly young fellow. Cynthia was more than delighted with the privilege of the tea party. "Some of the girls have brothers, but I don't know them very well. I like Bentley, but he is away at school. And I'd rather have just girls." Her admiration of the parlor knew no bounds, and it gratified him. She had been taking lessons on the spinet, but the painting was a great rival. And this was old, thin, and creaky. "I have found a much better one in Boston, and the dealer wants this because it was made in London in 1680. How strenuous some people are over old things. It has no special interest that I know of, and is comparatively useless." The new ones were really the beginning of pianofortes and this one was very sweet in tone. Chilian had been very greatly interested in the changes. He began to cultivate his neighbors a little more. Indeed improvements were taking place in the town. New streets were laid out, old ones straightened, fine new houses built. There seemed a sudden outburst of commercial grandeur. Furnishings of the richest sort were eagerly caught up by the shoppers, who did not think it necessary to go to Boston and buy goods that had come in port here. Many of the old wooden houses were replaced with brick, and the beautiful doorways, windows, roofs, and porches still attract craftsmen and architects from different sections of the country, while illustrators find rich material in old Colonial doorways. Miss Winn consulted Mrs. Upham as to what was proper for a girls' tea. "Miss Cynthia is old enough now to begin with friends in a simple manner. The family have lived so quietly that I have not gained much experience in such matters, and Miss Eunice doesn't feel equal to managing it. Of course, Miss Cynthia is quite an heiress and will go in with the best people." "As the Leveretts always have. There's been many a cap set for Chilian Leverett and it's been a wonder to every one that he hasn't married. But there's time enough yet." She came over and admired the parlors without stint. "You see," she said confidentially, "Miss Elizabeth was no hand for company. Some of the older people did the same, shut up the best rooms lest they should get faded, or something scratched, or worn. And I suppose he kept giving in; then there was his going in to college, and that's a sort of man's life. I'm glad he has had something to stir him up. He has been to several town-meetings. They are talking up improvements. It's a fine thing to have so many vessels flying Salem flags in different ports; nigh on to two hundred registered, husband said. But I told him there ought to be some home interest as well. We must not let Boston get so far ahead of us, nor forget the young people are to be the next generation." "And young people want some pleasure. I do not see how they stood so much of the gloomy side twenty years ago. I was that surprised when I first came here." "Well, there had been a good many things, and all that witchcraft business. Puritan ways grew sterner and sterner. I can't say that people were really the better for it, in my way of thinking, and the Saviour talked a good deal about loving and helping people. He didn't stop to make them subscribe to all sorts of hard things before he worked a miracle. But we were going to talk about the tea." "Yes; about what time now? I want Cynthia to have it just right and proper;" laughing. "They come--we'll say about four. They will want to run around and see things, and I'd have supper about five and they'll sit over it, and talk, and laugh. Suppose I send my 'Mimy over to pass things and wait. You would not want Miss Eunice to do it, and you will have other things on your hands." "Oh, thank you. You are very kind about it." "Well, I've had a girl to grow up and be married, and Polly's to leave school this summer, and next winter she will be setting up for a young lady. Little cookies and spicenuts are nice and two kinds of cake. You never give them real tea, you know, though it's called a tea party. And some cold chicken, or sliced ham. I'd spread the plates of bread, it's so much less trouble. They'll be sure to enjoy everything. A lot of girls always do have a good time." CHAPTER XIII A TASTE OF PLEASURE Cynthia was full of joy, running down to the gate to meet and greet guests. They came in groups of twos and threes, having called for each other. There were fifteen in all--the girls she knew best, who were nearest her own age, and at most of the houses she had been made a welcome guest. Indeed, more than one mother was glad to have her daughter good friends with Miss Cynthia Leverett, who was to be a rich young woman, and whose trustee in Boston lived in fine style. Yet it was not exactly that money was so much thought of either, though it was always esteemed an excellent thing. Somehow it was rather relegated to the men. A father had an idea that his daughters would marry well, so business opportunities, and often the homestead, went to the sons. Here was an undivided fortune. And now it was hardly likely Chilian Leverett would marry, so she might come in for that. The house had always been considered rather gloomy, as even on state occasions not much light was allowed in the parlors. Some of the girls had been gently advised to notice if there had been changes made. Cynthia led them upstairs to take off their things. They were rather particular about complexions in those days. Some of the summer hats were really ornate sunbonnets, others were the great poke shape with a big bow on top and wide strings that were allowed to float on a hot day, so as not to get crushed by the warmth under the chin. They had long muslin sleeves to pull over their arms, indeed some of them were finished with mittens, so that the hands might not get tanned. The girls wore rather scant straight skirts, tucked up to the waist, or with needlework at the bottom, or two or three tiny ruffles. The stockings were not always white, oftener they matched the color of the slippers that were laced across the instep. The necks were cut square, often finished with a lace berthe. Some old families have handed these down and kept them laid away in rose leaves and lavender, and they are so sweet that when they are shaken out they perfume the room. Cynthia wore a white gauzy frock made over blue silk that was soft as a pansy leaf. It had blue satin stripes and she was very glad she had the pretty blue slippers to match. Then almost every girl had a coral necklace, or was allowed to wear grandmother's gold beads. Some had their hair tied up high on their heads with a great bow, and maybe the family silver or gold comb put in artistically. Chilian liked the little girl's to hang loose, and now it was down to her waist. It was said the Holland wives of centuries ago took their visitors through their wardrobes and displayed their silk and velvet gowns. And when England passed some sumptuary laws that no one below titled rank should wear silk, the good wives of traders lined theirs with silk and hung them up in grand array to gratify their visitors or themselves. "You have so many lovely things," said a girl enviously. "I haven't but one silk frock, and that was Mary's until she outgrew it. And mother's so choice of it; she thinks it ought to last and go to Ruth." "Why, you see, so many things came from India," apologized Cynthia, almost ashamed of having so much. "And there's a boxful upstairs, but I think I like the white muslins best, they look so pretty when they are clean, and you don't have to be so careful." "Do you ever get scolded when accidents happen?" "Well, not much. Cousin Eunice is so sweet. Cousin Elizabeth was more particular." "And Miss Winn?" "Oh, my dear Rachel loves me too much," the child said laughingly. There were so many odd and pretty things that they staid up until all the girls had come--not one of them declined. Then they went down to the parlors. "Cousin Chilian said this back room was to be mine. That lovely desk and the cabinet were my own mother's. And the table is teakwood. The chair father had carved for me, and that big portrait is father. This case has miniatures of them both, but it is too big ever to wear." "What a pity!" It was a beautifully engraved gold case, set with jewels. "Well, you are a lucky girl! And you can have all these yourself. You just don't have to share them with anybody. Is the room truly yours?" "Why, it is to put my things in, but anybody can come in it, and we can go in the other room. Most of those articles were Cousin Chilian's father's and mother's, and the great clock in the hall came over in 1640. It's funny;" and she laughed. "Old furniture and quilts and things never get cross and queer as folks sometimes do." "Well, they're not really alive." "And they last so much longer than folks." They had not inspected all the things when Miss Winn invited them out to supper. She took the head of the table, and began to talk so that they should not feel embarrassed. The lovely old china was on the table, and two vases of flowers that looked as if they were set with gems. 'Mimy passed the plates of bread and butter and cold meats and cottage cheese, and after a little they all began to talk as if it was recess at school. Mr. Chilian Leverett passed through the sitting-room and thought it was really an enchanting sight, and that Cynthia was the prettiest girl of them all. People had not thought up ice cream in those days, but they made lovely custards, baked in cups with handles, and a tiny spoon to eat them with. They were the last of the tea. Then they went into the front parlor, which was the larger and played fox and geese, and blind-man's buff in a ring. Oh, Elizabeth, it was enough to disturb your rest to have those merry feet twinkle over the beautiful rug, when you scarcely dared walk tiptoe for fear of crushing the soft pile. But they had a grand, good time. Then Mr. Leverett brought in Cousin Eunice, who had a bit of white at her neck and wrists, and a lavender bow on her cap. She had protested against the bow, but Miss Winn had carried her point. Mr. Leverett set them to doing some amusing things he had resurrected from his own boyhood. Catches on words, such as "Malaga grapes are very good grapes, but the grapes of Oporto are better." And then, "A hen, a hen, but not a rooster. Can you say _that_?" They were greatly puzzled and looked at Cynthia, who was silently smiling, saying it over in every manner, until at last one girl almost shrieked out, "_That_," and there was a chorus of laughter. At nine o'clock they were bidden to come home. Some of them were sent for and those who lived near together went in a group. Ben Upham came for his sisters. "I don't see why they couldn't have had boys," said Ben to Polly. "Ever so many of us would have been glad to come." "Well, we didn't have any real boys' plays. But the supper was elegant. And 'Mimy waited so nicely. Cynthia's going to have the back parlor for hers, and Mr. Leverett has bought a new spinet. And she has the most beautiful things----" "Oh, yes, I've seen those;" rather impatiently. "And Mr. Leverett's just splendid!" "I always told you so;" somewhat grumpily. "But I'd rather be up in the study with him and Cynthy than to go to half a dozen parties." "Oh, we weren't in the study at all." "No, that isn't for girls." So he had scored one, after all. It was the general verdict when the tea party was talked over that Cynthia Leverett was in a fair way of being spoiled. A man didn't know how to bring up a girl, and, of course, Miss Winn let her have her own way. Miss Eunice had given in to her sister so long that she gave in to every one else. Friends went to call and found the children had not exaggerated. Now and then a neighbor was asked in to supper, and found Cynthia a nice, modest girl, with no airs of superiority. They had some journeys about. They went up to the bay of Fundy and cruised around, chatting with fishermen and French settlers in their odd costumes, looked at their funny little huts, and were amazed at the children rolling round in the sand and the sun. Cousin Chilian talked to them, but their language was a sort of patois difficult to understand. After that Cynthia was much interested in the French and English war. And the whole country was watching the Corsican who had made himself master of half of Europe. "It is a wonderful world," Cynthia said when they were safe in the study again. "And I wonder if it is narrow and selfish to be glad that you are just you?" He was amused at the idea. But he couldn't recall that he had ever been anxious to change with any one. "And that _you_ are just _you_. I couldn't like any one else as well, not even Cousin Giles, and I do like him very much." Chilian felt a rise of color stealing up his cheek. The preference was sweet, for Cousin Giles was extremely indulgent to her, and he was not a child enthusiast either. In those days no one supposed parents and friends were put in the world purposely for children's pleasure. They didn't even consider they came for _their_ pleasure. It was right to have them, they were to be the future men and women, workers, legislators, and homemakers. They didn't always have easy times, nor their own way, and they were not thought to be wiser than their parents, even in the choice of professions for life. But there were many fine brave fellows among the boys, and the girls went on, making pretty good wives and mothers. If life did not bring them just what they wished, they accepted it and did the best they could. Anthony Drayton came to make Cousin Chilian a visit and pass an examination for Harvard. With a little help he had worked his way through the academy. He was one of the brave, resolute boys, and, though it grieved him to go against his father's wishes, he had decided for himself. "I really could not bury myself on a farm," he confessed. "I want a wider life, I want to mix with men and take an interest in the country. Not that I despise farming, and if one could branch out and do many new things, but to keep on year after year in the old rut, corn and potatoes, wheat and rye--just as grandfather did. What is the use of a man living if he can't strike out some new ways? Maybe I'd been willing to go to the new countries, but father was just as opposed to that." He was a fresh, fair lad, with eyes of the Leverett blue, a strong, fine face, not delicate as Cousin Chilian's. His hair was not very dark, but his brows well defined, and with the eyelashes much darker than the hair. His voice had such a cheerful uplift. "You have quite decided then?" Chilian wondered if he could ever have gone against his father's wishes, but in that case father and son had similar tastes. "Oh, yes; I've nothing farther to look for, and I'm willing to leave my share to the other children. I know I can make my way, and I'm ready to work and wait." His voice had such a nice wholesome ring that it inspired you with faith in him. Cousin Eunice took a great fancy to him. They talked over the visit of years ago. It seemed to her as if it had just been the beginning of things. One sister was grown up and "keeping company," the other a nice handy girl. The next brother would be a great help--he cared nothing for books. Both of the Brent cousins were married, one living on the farm with his mother, the other having struck out for himself. And Miss Eliza Leverett was weakly. Like many women of that period, when all hope of marrying and having a home of her own was past, she sank down into a gentle nonentity and dreamed of Cousin Chilian. Not that she had expected to captivate him, but life with some one like that would set one on the highest pinnacle. He thought Cousin Cynthia--they were always cousins, to the fourth generation--was the sweetest, daintiest, and most winsome thing he had ever seen--and so she was, for his acquaintance with girls had been limited. They looked over the old treasures in the house and thought it wonderful any one should ever go to India and return without being wrecked. They walked about the lovely garden, and he was amazed at her familiarity with flowers and plants he had never seen. Then she took him over to the Uphams, for an old friend came in to play checkers with Cousin Chilian. Polly was bright and merry, but somehow Ben seemed rather captious. Anthony listened with surprise at the bright sayings they flung at one another. The next day he and Cousin Chilian went over topics for examination. His reading had not been extensive but thorough. In mathematics he was excellent. But he found some time to chat with Cynthia, and they both walked down to the warehouse with Cousin Chilian. What a sight it was! He had read of such things, but to see the hundreds of busy men, the great fleet of vessels, the docks piled with all kinds of wares, the boxes and bales lying round in endless confusion. And the great ocean, lost over beyond in the far-off sky. When the two had gone up to Boston, Cynthia felt very lonely. She had been sipping the sweets of unspoken admiration. She saw it in the eyes, in the deference, as if he was almost afraid of her, in the sudden flush when she turned her eyes to him. It was a new kind of worship. She went over to the Uphams. Polly had been having her sampler framed. The acorn border was very pretty in its greens and browns. Then a stiff little tree grew up both sides, about like those that came in the Noah's Ark later on. And between these two trees was worked in cross-stitch: "Mary Upham is my name, America is my nation; Salem is my dwelling place, And Christ is my salvation." "Isn't the frame nice?" she asked. "I made father two shirts and he gave me the frame and the glass. Peter Daly made it. And the frame is oiled and polished until the grain shows--well, almost like watered silk. Gitty Sprague has a beautiful pelisse of gray watered silk. And now I have one thing for my house. I'm beginning to lay by." "Your house!" Cynthia ejaculated in surprise. "Why, yes--when I'm married. You have such lots of things, you'll never have to save up." Cynthia was wondering what she could give away. Not anything that was her father's or her mother's. "I'll paint you a picture. You do so much better needlework than I that I should be ashamed to offer you any." "And the girls will give me some, I know. I'd fifty times rather have the picture. What a nice young fellow that cousin is! I'm glad his name isn't Leverett. There's such a host of them. But I don't like Anthony so well." "That was father's name. It's quite a family name. It always sounds good to me." "And is he going to Harvard?" "Yes; even if he can't get in right away." "That's nice, too. It's quite the style for young men to go to college. Some of them put on a sight of airs, though. He doesn't look like that kind." "He isn't," she returned warmly. "He is going to work his way through." "Oh! Hasn't he any father?" "Yes; but his father will not do anything for him. I think it is real grand of him." Polly nodded, but she lost interest in the young man. Bentley walked home with Cynthia. It was afternoon, so he did not really need to. "I suppose that cousin isn't going to live with you?" he asked presently. "Oh, no; he will have to live in Boston." "And come up here for Sundays?" "Why, I don't know. That would be nice. I think I am growing fond of company." "Well, I can come over;" half jocosely. "Oh, I meant other people;" innocently. "Then you don't care for my coming?" "Yes, I do. Oh, do you remember that winter I was half sick and how you used to come over and read Latin? And I used to say it to myself after you." That delighted him. He didn't feel so cross about the young fellow, but he half hoped he wouldn't pass, and have to go back to New Hampshire for another year. They sat on the stoop and chatted until the old stage stopped and Chilian alighted. "Oh!" the young girl cried, "where did you leave Anthony?" "With Cousin Giles. The examinations will begin to-morrow." It was near supper-time and Ben rose to go. Sometimes they asked him to stay to supper, but to-night they did not. Then an event happened that took Cynthia's entire interest for a while. This was the return of Captain Corwin. He came up the walk one day--quite a grizzled old fellow it seemed, with the sailor's rolling gait--and looked at her so sharply that she had a mind to run away. "Oh, Captain Anthony's little girl," he cried. "You have forgotten me. And it ain't been so long either." She thought a moment and turned from red to white. Then she stretched out both hands and cried, her eyes and voice full of tears: "Oh, you couldn't bring him back!" "No, little Missy. He'd shipped for the last time before I'd reached there and gone to a better haven. He was the best friend I ever had. But he knew it long afore, and that was why he wanted you safe with friends." "I know now." She brushed the tears from her eyes. "And I hope you've been happy." "I waited and waited at first. Sometimes I wished I was a bird. Oh, wouldn't we have a lovely time if we could fly? And one time in the winter I was quite ill--it was so cold and I did get so tired of waiting. Then Cousin Chilian told me he had gone to mother and I knew how glad she would be to see him. I had some nice times. Cousin Chilian loved me very much. So did Cousin Eunice. I think Cousin Elizabeth would if she had lived longer, but she went away, too. Oh, I've done so many things--studied books, and taken journeys, and made friends, and painted pictures, flowers, and such. And I've tried to paint the sea, but I can't make it move and seem like a real sea." "Oh, Missy, how smart you must be!" "There are so many things I don't know," she laughed. "And now tell me about yourself and why you did not come back." "We had a pretty fair journey all along first. But as we were nearing Torres Strait an awful storm took us, and we were driven ashore almost a wreck and lost two of our men. After a while we got patched up and set sail again, but I was afraid we would never reach harbor. Howsomever we did, in a pretty bad condition. Poor _Flying Star_ seemed on its last legs and 'twasn't sea legs either. Then I went up to Hong Kong and cruised around, buying stuff and selling it elsewhere. The _Flying Star_ was patched up again, but she wasn't thought safe for a long journey. But there was plenty of work near at hand. Of course, I knew all about your father, and that the word must have reached you, but I hated mortally to come back and face you. But after a while the hankerin' for old Salem grew upon me. And there was the _Aurora_ wantin' a captain, for the man who brought her out died of a fever. So says I, 'I'm your man, and I've been over often enough to know the ropes, the islands, and p'ints of danger and safe sailing.' So here I be once more. But jiminy Peter! I should hardly 'a' knowed little old Salem. Why, she looks as if she was going to outsail all creation!" "Oh, we're getting very grand. New streets, and splendid new houses, and stores, and churches. Why, Boston isn't very much finer." "Don't b'lieve Boston harbor can show tonnage with her! And where's first mate?" "I don't know, but he will be in soon. Oh, there's Rachel. Rachel, come here to an old friend." The captain shook hands heartily. "Why, you don't seem to have changed a mite, only to grow younger and plump as a partridge." It had all to be talked over again and in the midst of it supper was ready, and there was Miss Eunice's surprise. Cynthia could hardly eat, the long journey and the dangers seemed such a strange thing now. Had she really come from India, or was it all a dream? Yes, old Salem was almost fading out of the minds of even middle-aged people. There were curious stories told about witches and ghosts, but the real witchcraft was dying out of mind and the old houses that had been associated with it were looked upon as curiosities. Public spirit was being roused. In 1804 the East India Marine Society left the Stearns house and moved to the new Pickman Building in Essex Street. People began to send in curiosities that had been stored away in garrets: models of early vessels, articles from Calcutta, from the islands about the Central and South Pacific, cloths, and cloaks, and shawls, and implements. The captain was quite sure Winter Island had grown larger--perhaps it had, by docking out. And he declared the streets looked like London, with the gayly gowned women, the stores, the carriages, for a number of handsome late ones were to be seen. There were a few fine young men on the promenade and they were attired in the height of fashion, as the society men of New York and Philadelphia. They were still paying attention to business and devoting the evenings to pleasure. Descendants of the strict old Puritans met to play cards and have dances and gay times with the young ladies. In the afternoon a cup of tea would be offered to callers, or a piece of choice cake and a glass of wine--often home-made. There were few excesses. Many were still wearing the old Continental attire, yet you saw an old Puritan gentleman, with his long coat, his high-crowned hat, black silk stockings, and low shoes with great steel buckles. Anthony was very much interested in the captain, whose best friend had been Anthony Leverett. He was proud of the name, and Cynthia's story was like a romance to him. He was taken up quite cordially by Cousin Giles, and very cordially by Mrs. Stevens, who had a liking for young men when they were well-mannered. He had managed to enter Harvard, with some studies to make up. Chilian Leverett insisted he should do no teaching this year, and offered him enough to see him through, but he would only accept it as a loan. Bentley Upham was a year ahead and had a good standing, but he felt a little jealous of the young country fellow--"bumpkin" he would have liked to call him, but he was not that. A young man received at Mr. Giles Leverett's, and who sometimes escorted Mrs. Stevens to an entertainment, was not to be ignored. The captain staid in port nearly two months and Cynthia experienced her old fondness for him, if he was a little uncouth and rough. They went down to see the _Aurora_ off and she recalled the day she had said good-bye to the _Flying Star_, that was to bring back her father. As for her she was very busy learning to play and to paint. It was a young lady's accomplishment, but she really did very well. There were girls' teas, and now and then a small dance that began at seven and ended at nine, but boys were invited generally. Miss Polly Upham was quite in the swim, as we should say now. Mothers expected their daughters to marry, and how could they if they did not see young men? But there was a certain propriety observed, and very little playing fast and loose with the most sacred period of life, with the greatest God-given blessing--Love. CHAPTER XIV IN GAY OLD SALEM The next winter Cynthia was fairly launched on society. There was no regular coming out in almost bridal array, with a grand tea and a houseful of flowers. When a girl left school she expected to be invited out and to give little companies at home. Almost the first thing, she was asked to be one of the six bridesmaids at Laura Manning's wedding. The Mannings had one of the splendid new houses on Chestnut Street, with spacious grounds before the houses grew so close together. Avis Manning was still in school, Cynthia was between the two in age. Mr. Manning was connected with the East India trade and an old friend of the Leverett family. It had begun by Cynthia being invited to a girls' tea, and Mrs. Manning had taken a great fancy to her. Laura was not very tall, and they did not want any one to dwarf the bride. Every one was to be in white, the bride in a soft, thick silk, and she was to have a court train. The maids were to be in mull or gauze, as a very pretty thin material was called. The Empress Josephine had brought in new styles that certainly were very becoming to young people. The short waist and square neck, the sleeve puffs that had shrunk so much they no longer reached the ears, the short curls around the edge of the forehead arranged so the white parting showed, the dainty feet in elegant slippers and choice silk stockings that could not help showing, for the skirts were short. Pretty feet and slim ankles seemed to be a mark of good family. "Will I do?" Cynthia stood before Cousin Chilian with a half-saucy smile. Around her throat she wore a beautiful Oriental necklace, with pendants of different fine stones that sparkled with every turn of the head. There were match pendants in her ears, and just back of the rows of curls was a jewelled comb. She was a pretty girl without being a striking beauty. But her eyes would have redeemed almost any face, and now they were all aglow with a wonderful light. He looked his admiration. "Because if _you_ don't like me----" There was a charming half-coquettish way about her, but she never made a bid for compliments. "What then?" laughing. "I'd stay home and spoil the wedding party. I know they couldn't fill my place on a short notice." He thought they couldn't fill it at all, but he said almost merrily, "You need not stay at home." Cousin Eunice said she looked pretty enough for the bride. Miss Winn had attended to her toilette, and now she wrapped a soft silken cloak about her and Cousin Chilian put her in the carriage. He was all in his best, ruffled shirt-front, light brocaded silk waist-coat, and there were lace ruffles about his hands. One feels inclined to wonder at the extravagance of those days, when one sees some of the heirlooms that have come down to us. But their handsome gowns went through several seasons, and then were made over for the daughters. And they did not have their jewels reset every few months. Such a roomful of pretty girls! Youth and health and picturesque dressing make almost any one pretty. Miss Laura looked fine, but she paused to say, "Oh, Cynthia, what an elegant necklace!" "Father had it made for mother," she replied simply. They patted and pulled a little, powdered, too. Miss Willard, the great mantua-maker of that day, who superintended the dressing of brides, saw that everything was right. The young men came from their dressing-room, and they began to form the procession. Both halls were illuminated with no end of candles, and guests were standing about. Mr. Lynde Saltonstall took his bride-to-be, and they let the white train sweep down the broad stairway, then Avis Manning and Ed Saltonstall followed. They were not much on knick-names in those days, but he had been called Ed to distinguish him from some cousins. Cynthia and a cousin came next, and there were several other relatives. It was a beautiful sight. The bride walked up to the white satin cushion on which the couple would kneel during the prayer, the maids and attendants made a semicircle around her, and then the nearest relatives. The old white-haired minister had married her mother. Then there was kissing and congratulation and Mrs. Saltonstall had her new name, though Avis said she liked Manning a hundred times better. "Then you wouldn't accept my name?" said Ed, but he looked laughingly at Cynthia. "Indeed I wouldn't! I don't want any one's name at present. I'm going to be the only daughter of the house a while," she returned saucily. "I wonder if I ought to go on and ask all the maids?" There was such a funny anxiety in his face that it added to the merriment. "You needn't ask this one," said Ward Adams, and Cousin Lois Reade blushed scarlet, though they all knew she was engaged. "But I'm going to dance with every maid. And just at twelve I'm going to hunt for a glass slipper." His look at Cynthia said he needn't hunt very far, and she blushed, which made her more enchanting than before. They all laughed and talked, the older men teasing the bride a little and giving her advice as to how she should break in her new husband. Young people's weddings were expected to be gay and every one added his or her mite. The fine new house was duly admired. On one side it was all one long room, beautifully decorated. On the other a library, for books were beginning to come in fashion, even if you were not a clergyman or a student. Then a kind of family sitting-room, with a large dining-room at the back. Some of the fine old houses were taken for public purposes later on. They went out to refreshments and the bride cut the cake with a silver knife. Large suppers were no longer considered the style, but there was a bountiful supply of delicacies. They drank health and long life to the bride and groom, and good wishes of all kinds. The black waiter, in white gloves and white apron, stood in the hall to deliver boxes of wedding cake as the older people took their departure. And then the fiddlers began to tune up. There were two minuets to take in all the party. Cynthia and Mr. Jordan were in the head one, with the bride. He was a little stiff and excused himself, as he wasn't much given to dancing. It didn't matter so much in the minuet. Then they paired off any way. Mr. Ed Saltonstall caught Cynthia's hand. "I'm just dying to dance with you, and this is the basket quadrille. Jordan dances like a pump handle, but he's a good fellow. Now let us have something worth while. I know you dance beautifully." "How do you know?" piquantly. "I'd like to be nautical and impertinent, but I'm afraid you'd report me to Mr. Leverett. Oh, it's in you, in every motion. Aren't you glad you didn't live in those old Puritan days when you would have been put in the stocks if you had skipped across the room? Come." That _was_ dancing. Not a halt nor an ungraceful turn, but every curve and motion was as perfect as if they had danced together all their lives. She gave two or three happy sighs. Her cheeks were like the heart of a blush rose; she never turned very red when she ran or skipped, and never looked blowsy. Another person watched and thought her the prettiest thing in the room, and was very glad she belonged to him. "I'm sorry I have to dance with some one else and it's Lois Reade. Adams would like to kick me, I know, and she would be twice as happy with him. That is the price you pay for assisting your brother into matrimony. Next time there shall not be but one bridesmaid, and I'll dance with her all the evening." "Next time? Will he be married twice?" she asked demurely. "Oh, you witch! You are the most delicious dancer--it almost seems as if you were sipping some very fine wine----" "And it went to your head," she laughed. "Head and heels both. I'm extravagantly fond of it with a partner like you. You'll go to the assemblies this winter?" "Oh, I don't know." "Is Mr. Leverett very--he's your guardian, and somehow I stand just a little in awe of him. He is so polished, and knows so much, and is he going to be very exclusive?" "Why----" She didn't quite understand, but she looked out of such lovely eyes that all his pulses throbbed. "Take your places." She was standing there alone when Mr. Adams asked her. That was only fair play. Mr. Saltonstall was in the same set and he gave her hand a squeeze when he took her, crumpled it all up in his, and she flushed daintily. He could not dance with her again until the very last. That was a "circle" in which you balanced and turned your partner and went to the next couple, but some way you returned to your own. There were various pretty figures in it. Once or twice she was a little confused, but he seemed always on the watch for her. The music stopped and the fiddlers were locking their cases. The dancers went out to the supper-room again. "I'd rather dance than eat. I believe I could dance without music. Would you like to try?" he asked. "Oh, no!" with a frightened look that made him laugh. Mr. Leverett came, and Mr. Saltonstall was all polite deference. He wished he could be invited to call, but how was it to be managed? Then Cynthia went upstairs to put on her cloak. The bride kissed her, and said she was glad to have had her, and when they gave their house-warming she must be sure to come. "I've had such a lovely time. Thank you ever so much." "I'm the obliged one," was the reply. If she had not been in the carriage she must have danced all the way home. There was music in her head and a "spirit in her feet." She hardly heard what Cousin Chilian was saying, only after they entered the house and she slipped out of her wrap, with his good-night, he said, "You are a very pretty girl, Cynthia." Of course, he should have had more sense than to foster a girl's vanity. The next morning she asked him about the assemblies. "They are very nice dancing parties. Only the best people go and no sort of freedom or misbehavior is tolerated. I think I'll take out a membership." "Oh, do, please do," she entreated. The elegant wedding was talked of for days. Girls called on Miss Leverett--it seemed funny to be called that. She was asked to join a sewing society that made articles of clothing for the widows and children of drowned sailors, and there were many of them on the New England coast. Her tender heart was moved by the pathetic tales she heard. "Dear Cousin Eunice," she said one day, "I went with one of the committee to see a poor sick woman who is in awful destitution. There are three small children, and when she is well she goes out washing. They send her driftwood and old stuff from the ship-yards, and one of the companies pays her rent. But you should see the things! Such ragged quilts that hardly hold together, and one little boy was without stockings. There are so many things up in the garret that you will never use----" "Likely, dear, but they are Chilian's." "He said I might ask you, that he was willing. Can't we go up and find some? What is the use of their being piled up year after year, and people in need? Ah, if you could see the poor place!" Miss Eunice went unwillingly. The thrift of New England did often shrivel into penuriousness. She and Elizabeth were in the habit of putting away so many partly worn articles for the time of need. "Those old blankets and quilts----" "Elizabeth thought they would do to cover over." "But there are so many better ones. And some on the closet shelves that have never been used. Why, there is enough to last a hundred years." "Oh, no;" with an alarmed expression. "And even I shall not last a hundred years. No one does." "Oh, yes. I knew a woman who lived to be one hundred and four." "Did she come to want?" "She had a good son to take care of her." "And you have Cousin Chilian. I read somewhere in the Bible--I wish I could remember the chapters and verses, 'While we have time let us do good unto _all_ men.' I suppose that means those who haven't been frugal and careful, as well as the others." "We can't tell just what every sentence means." "But we can help them. And here is a poor woman who doesn't go to taverns;" smiling tenderly and with persuasive eyes. They picked out enough for a wagon-load. Some of Cousin Chilian's clothes that would do to cut over, old woollen blankets, and a variety of articles. "Let us put them all in this chest." "We might need the chest." "Oh, no, we won't. They will be so much easier to carry that way. Silas could drive down there. And, oh, you can't imagine how much good they will do." Cynthia went down to see afterward, and the poor woman's gratitude brought tears to her eyes. "They will be a perfect God-send this winter," she said. "I've been frettin' as to what we should do. I've never begged yet. Well, the Lord is good." Then there came another source of interest. Polly Upham was "keeping company." A nice, steady young man in the ship-chandlery business, with a little money saved up, whose folks lived at Portsmouth. He came regularly on Wednesday night and Sundays to tea. They went to church in the evening, and that certified it to the young people. Betty had left school and was trying her hand at housekeeping. Louis, the little fellow, was a big boy. Alice Turner was engaged also, and certainly very much in love if she considered the young man a paragon. Cynthia compared them all with Cousin Chilian, and it wasn't a bit fair. She met Mr. Saltonstall at a small party, where they played games and had forfeits. It was odd, she thought, how the girls chose him in everything. She didn't choose him once. He spoke of it afterward. "Why, I thought some of the others ought to have a chance," she explained with winning sweetness. "But if it had been dancing!" and she laughed, and that reconciled him. Then Mrs. Lynde Saltonstall gave her house-warming. It was a simple dwelling and not very large, but it was pretty as a picture. And young people didn't expect to rival their fathers and mothers in the start. They had dancing, and that was enough. They were all young people, and two of the fiddlers were there. They had a gay time and a nice supper. "I think Ed is smitten with Cynthia Leverett," Laura remarked to her husband. "He seemed to feel annoyed that they had sent Miss Winn in the carriage for her. She's a lovely dancer." "It wouldn't be a bad thing for Ed. She has lots of money that just turns itself over on interest. And her trustee has been buying up some choice Boston property for her. She's pretty and has charming manners and comes of a good family." Then Mrs. Stevens asked her to come in to Boston for a few days. She was going to have a little dancing party. "My dear, you'll dance yourself to death," said Cousin Eunice. "Oh, no. It isn't as hard as cleaning house or washing, as some of the poor women do. And it is tiresome to practise on the spinet, hour after hour--counting time and all that. If I was a girl of twenty years ago I'm afraid I should be chasing up and down some old garret, spinning on the big wheel." Cousin Eunice laughed, too. Cynthia always made commonplaces seem amusing, she accented them so with her bright face. They were very glad to have her in Boston. Chilian took her in on Saturday and staid with her until Monday morning. On Sunday Anthony Drayton was invited in to dinner. He had improved very much. The country air had been effaced. And he was a gentleman by instinct, and acquired cultivation readily. "And a fine fellow!" said Cousin Giles, rubbing his hands. "He's decided to go in for law presently, and it will be a most excellent thing. I don't know but I'll have to adopt him, as you did Cynthia." Anthony hovered about the young girl. She had been cultivating her voice the last year. It was a sweet parlor voice, adapted to the old-time songs. Mrs. Stevens had a book of them and she sang most cheerfully. "Oh, I wish you were going to stay over another Sunday," he exclaimed wistfully. "But I shall come in on Tuesday evening. I don't dance, but Mrs. Stevens is so kind to me, I've met several of the first men in the city here." "Oh, I am glad you are coming." It was a very sincere joy and she could not keep it out of her face, did not try to. And it was such a sweet face that she raised to his. He had a sudden unreasonable wish that he was five years older and settled in business, but then--she was very young. Mrs. Stevens said to her on Monday, after she had read a note over and glanced up at her rather furtively, "There's a friend of yours coming Tuesday night--a friend from Salem that I hope you will be glad to see." "From Salem----" "Mr. Saltonstall. He was in here a fortnight or so ago. His mother and I used to be great friends. I happened to ask him if he knew the Leveretts, and he told me about his brother's marriage, that you were one of the bridesmaids." "Oh, yes. Laura Manning was one of the older girls at Madam Torrey's. They had just gone in their new house and the wedding was splendid. And I liked Mr. Edward Saltonstall so much. He is a most beautiful dancer. I'm so glad he is coming. You see I don't know many of the new dances, and I shouldn't so much mind making a break with him." She looked up in her sweet, brave innocence as she uttered it. "You are not in love with him, little lady, and he is very much smitten with you," Mrs. Stevens ruminated. "But you shall have the chance." "I've always liked Ed," she continued. "He's a nice, frank, honest fellow, pretty gay at times, but not at all in the dissipated line, just full of fun and frolic. So I asked him down, and here he says he will come," waving her note. "I look out for men who dance. I do like to see young folks have a good time. The older people can play cards." It seemed rather odd that at eight o'clock not a soul had come. At home they would be beginning the fun by this time. Then a sudden influx of girls, some she had met before--two or three young men--and then young Saltonstall, who had been counting the moments the last half hour. "I am so glad to see you. It was such a surprise." He could see it in her face, hear it in her voice. He really was afraid of saying something foolish--something that would be no harm if they were alone. "I've known Mrs. Stevens a long while. And Mr. Giles Leverett. It's queer--well, not quite that either--that I've known you such a little while. I always thought of you as a child, though I've seen you drive your pony carriage." "Mrs. Stevens is delightful." Then there was another relay, quite a number of young gentlemen. The black fiddlers in the hall began to tune up. There were two very handsome girls and beautifully gowned. All of them looked pretty in dancing attire. Then a quadrille was called. There were just eight couples. Of course, Mr. Saltonstall took her. The rug was up and the floor had been polished. The dancing was elegant, harmonious. "The next is the Spanish dance. You will like that. The windings about are like the song words to the music." "But--I don't know it;" and she shrank back. "Oh, you'll get into it. You are the kind that could pick up any step. You make me think of a swallow as it darts round. If it made a mistake no one would know it." "Oh, I'd rather not;" entreatingly. "Don't spoil the set." She rose up and let him lead her out. She had a way of yielding so quickly, when it was right and best, very flattering to a man in love and easily misread. If dancing had been art instead of nature, something by rote instead of a segment of inner harmony, she could not have succeeded so well. He warded off the few blunders, and at the third change she had another well-bred partner. But she was glad to get back to him. The joy shone in her dangerous eyes. There were some new dances coming in. One of the girls from New York and her escort waltzed up and down the room in a slow-gliding manner that was the poetry of motion. She was fascinated, enchanted, and she knew she could do it herself. "We'll try it sometime," Saltonstall said. Mr. Leverett came in, bringing Anthony Drayton with him. He knew he was late, but he didn't dance, and he had earned five dollars copying that evening. But he must see Cynthia. "Oh, I thought you would not come!" Then she had been giving a thought to him out of her happy time! "I was detained. Are they all well, or didn't Cousin Chilian come down?" "Oh, no." They were being marshalled out to supper. "You'll have to content yourself with me," said Mrs. Stevens to Anthony, and he accepted smilingly. But she placed Cynthia next, so he could have a little talk with her. He was getting on so well, and she was glad for him. Some one wanted Miss Tracy to waltz again. Then they had a galop, and the party broke up. Anthony said good-night, and that he was coming up on Saturday. Then Saltonstall drew her into a little nook in the hall that made a connection with another room when it was open. Mrs. Stevens had smiled over its uses. "Cynthia, my darling, I must tell you this," and his voice seemed to throb with emotion. "I want the right to come and visit you as lovers have, for I love you, love you! I am coming to see Mr. Leverett and ask his permission. I do nothing but dream of you day and night. You are the sweetest, dearest----" "Oh, don't! don't!" She struggled in the clasp. "Oh, I can't--I----" and he felt her slight body tremble, so he loosed it. "Forgive me. I wanted you to know so no one can take you from me. I want to see you often. Oh, love, good-night, good-night!" He pressed a rapturous kiss upon her hand and was gone. She slipped through to the dining-room and took a glass of water. "You look tired to death, little country girl," said Uncle Giles, and he kissed her on the forehead. CHAPTER XV LOVERS AND LOVERS "Take me home with you, Cousin Chilian," she pleaded, when he came in the next day. "But I thought"--he studied her in surprise. "I want to go home," she interrupted, and her under lip had a quiver in it that would have disarmed almost any one, persuaded as well. "Why, yes. Didn't you enjoy the party?" He felt suddenly at loss, he was not used to translating moods with all his knowledge. "Oh, it was delightful! And some such pretty girls. There were new dances. And Mrs. Stevens _is_ charming. Anthony came over a little while." In spite of inducements held out, she would go. Cousin Giles was almost cross about it. "I'm so glad to get back," she said to Rachel. "One feels so safe here." "Was there any danger?" laughed the elder. Cynthia's face was scarlet. It wasn't danger exactly, but she felt better under Cousin Chilian's wing. And she was her bright gay self all the evening. But how to get her story told? For if Mr. Saltonstall came and asked for her company, as they termed it then, and not being warned, he should consent---- They sat by the study fire. It had turned out cold and cloudy, with indications of snow. He had a lamp near him on the small table, and read and thought, as his glance wandered dreamily over the leaping flashing blue and yellow flames. If it stormed for one or two days, she could not have come home. She rose presently and came and stood by him, laid her hand lightly on his shoulder. She was a young lady now, and it was hardly proper to draw her down on his knee. "Cousin Chilian;" hesitatingly. "Well, dear?" in an inquiring tone. "There is something I ought to tell you, and I want to ask you--to--to do--oh, I hardly know how to say it. Mr. Saltonstall came down; he and Mrs. Stevens are old friends----" Ah, he knew now. This young man had dared to invade the virginal sweetness of her soul, to trouble the quiet stream of girlhood. He was roused, strangely angry, for all his placid temperament. "I couldn't help it--just before he went away--and I couldn't have dreamed of such a thing----" Then she hid her head down on his shoulder and cried. "Dear--my dear little girl--oh, yes, it would have to happen sometime. And--he loves you." "Oh, that isn't the worst;" illogically, between her sobs. "He is coming to ask you if he may--and I don't want him to come that way. I just want it as it was before. Polly Upham can't think or talk of anything but her intended, and it gets tiresome. He doesn't seem so very wonderful to me. And wouldn't it weary you to hear me praising some one all the time?" "I think it would," he answered honestly, yet with some confusion of mind. "So I don't want it;" with more courage in her voice. "I want good times with them all. And I don't see how you can come to love any one all in a moment." Was he hearing aright? Didn't she really want the young man for a lover? He was unreasonably, fatuously glad, and the pulses, that were chilled a moment ago, seemed to race hot through his body. "It was not quite marriage?" a little huskily. "He wanted to ask if he might have the right to come, and he said he loved me, and, oh, I am afraid----" She was trembling. He could feel it where she leaned against him. He took sudden courage. "And you do not want him to come in that way? It would most likely lead to an engagement. And then I should have to listen to his praises continually. Yes, it would be rather hard on me;" and he laughed with a humorous sound. It heartened her a good deal. She was smiling now herself, but there were tears on her cheek. "And you won't mind telling him; that is not _very_ much, that----" "I think you are too young to decide such a grave matter, Cynthia," he began seriously. "And you ought to have a glad, sweet youth. There is no reason why you should rush into marriage. You have a pleasant home with those that love you----" "And I don't want to go away. I feel as if I would like to live here always. You are so good and indulgent, and Cousin Eunice is so nice, now that she doesn't seem afraid of any one. Were we all afraid of Cousin Elizabeth? And we have such nice talks. She tells me about the old times and what queer thoughts people had, and how hard they were. And about girls whose lovers went away to sea and never came back, and how they watched and waited, and sometimes we cry over them. And the house is so cheerful, and I can have all the flowers I want, and friends coming in, and, oh, I shall never want to go away, because I shall never love any one as well as you." That was very sweet, but it was a girl's innocence, and her face did not change color in the admission. "Well, I will explain the matter to Mr. Saltonstall. I am glad you told me, otherwise I should hardly have known your wishes on the subject. And now we will go on having good times together, and count out lovers." "Yes, yes." She gave his hand a squeeze and was her own happy self, not feeling half as sorry for the man who would come to be denied as he did. It snowed furiously the next morning, and sullenly the day after. Then it was cold, and she said half a dozen times a day she was so glad she came home. She did not see Mr. Saltonstall when he called, and she really did miss him at two little companies. Then she wondered if she oughtn't give one, she had gone to so many. "Why, yes," Cousin Chilian answered. She might have turned the house upside down so long as she was going to stay in it. Then she wondered if she ought to invite _him_. Mrs. Lynde and she were very good friends, and she should ask Avis, of course. They spoke--they were not ill friends. Chilian considered. "Yes, I think I would," he made answer. They had a merry time and danced on the beautiful rugs, and had a fine supper. And Mr. Saltonstall was glad to be friends. She _was_ young and presently she might think of lovers. He would try and keep his chance good. _Anthony came now_ and then and spent a Sunday with them. He loved to hear Cousin Chilian read Greek verses, but the pretty love odes seemed to mean Cynthia, and he used to watch her. Then Ben Upham was a visitor as well, and used to play checkers with her, as that was considered quite a good exercise for one's brains. Polly would be married in the spring, Alice Turner in June. The Turners were always besieging her for a two or three days' visit, and the Turner young men hovered round her. She never seemed to do anything, she never demanded attention, but when she glanced up at them, or smiled, they followed her as the children did the Pied Piper. She might have led them into dangerous places, but she was very simple of heart. Yet the danger was alluring to them. Polly came to her for a good deal of counsel. When there were two patterns of sleeves, which should she take? "Why, I'd have the India silk made with this and the English gingham with that--you see it will iron so much easier. Miss Grayson does up the puffs on a shirring cord, then you can let them out in the washing." "That's a fine idea. You do have such splendid ideas, Cynthy." "They are mostly Rachel Winn's," laughed the young girl. They had a capable woman in the kitchen now. Cynthia should have been mastering the high art of housekeeping, people thought, instead of running about so much and driving round in the pony carriage with Miss Winn, or a girl companion. Of course, there was plenty of money, but one never quite knew what would happen. John Loring was building his house as people who could did in those days. They would not be able to finish it all inside, and there was a nook left for an addition when they needed it. Polly was to have some of grandmother's furniture, and John's mother would provide a little. Corner cupboards were quite a substitute in those days for china closets, and window-seats answered for chairs. But there was bedding and napery, and no one thought of levying on friends. Relatives looked over their stock and bestowed a few articles. Cynthia thought of the stores in the old house and wished she might donate them. She did pick out some laces from her store, and two pretty scarfs, one of which Polly declared would be just the thing to trim her wedding hat, which was of fine Leghorn. So she would only have to buy the feather. They haunted the stores and occasionally picked up a real bargain. Even at that period shoppers did not throw their money broadcast. "Cynthia Leverett is the sweetest girl I know," Polly said daily, and Bentley was of the same opinion. They were to stand at the wedding. "And I want you to wear that beautiful frock that you had when Laura Manning was married. I shall only have two bridesmaids, you and Betty, but I want you to look your sweetest." And surely she did. They had a very nice wedding party and the next day Polly went to her own house and had various small tea-drinkings, and she arranged them for Saturday so Bentley could come up. They were wonderfully good friends, but Cynthia felt as if she had outgrown him. In her estimation he was just a big friendly boy that one could talk to familiarly. Anthony was more backward in the laughter and small-talk. Then there was the college degree. There was no such great fuss made over commencement then, no grand regattas, no inter-collegiate athletics, for it was a rather serious thing to begin a young man's life and look forward to marriage. He went straight to Mr. Chilian. It was the proper thing to be fortified with the elders' consent. Of course, he would not marry in some time yet, but if he could be her "company" and speak presently--they had been such friends. Chilian studied the honest young fellow, whose face was in a glow of hope. So young to dream of love and plan for the future! "You are both too young;" and his voice had a bit of sharpness in it. "Cynthia is not thinking of such things." "But one _can_ think of them. They begin somehow and go into your very life. I believe I've loved her a long while." "I think neither of you really know what love is. No, I cannot consent to it. I want her to go on having a good free time without any anxiety. I have some right to her, being her guardian." "But--I will wait--I didn't mean to ask her immediately." "We are going on a journey presently. I cannot have her disturbed with this. No, your attention must be devoted to business for the next two years." He drew a long breath. "But you don't mean I must break off--everything?" and there was an unsteadiness in his voice. "Oh, no. Not if you can keep to the old friendliness." Then Chilian Leverett dropped into his easy-chair and thought. The child had grown very dear to him, she was a gift from her father. A tumultuous, uncomprehended pain wrenched his very soul. To live without her--to miss her everywhere! To have lonely days, longer lonely evenings when the dreariness of winter set in. And yet she had a right to the sweet, rich draught of love. But she did not need it amid all the pleasures of youth. Let her have two or three years, even if it was blissful thoughtlessness. But he must put her on her guard. A young fellow soon changed his mind. The old couplet sang itself in his brain: "If she be not fair for me, What care I how fair she be?" Did he get over his early love and forget? We all say, "But ours was different." How to find the right moment? Ben did not come over. She was very busy with this friend and that, youth finds so _many_ interests. But one evening, when they were sitting on the porch in the moonlight, the young fellow walked slowly along, glanced at them, halted. She flew down to the gate. "Oh, Ben, what has happened?" she cried, the most bewitching anxiety in her face. "Why, you have not been in--for weeks." "Not quite two weeks." Had it seemed so long to her? To him it had been months. "Oh, come in. Cousin Chilian will be glad to see you." The radiant cordiality in her face unnerved him. "And you?" Yes, he must know. "Do you have to ask that question?" The sweet, dangerous eyes said too much, but the smile was that of amusement. So they walked up the path together. Mr. Leverett greeted him in a friendly manner. "I thought I ought to come in and say good-bye. I'm going off on some business for father, and may not be back for several weeks." "That sounds as if you needed an apology for coming at all," she commented with half-resentful gayety. He flushed and made no immediate reply. "And we are going to take a journey as well. Up somewhere in Maine. Mr. Giles Leverett insists we shall, for our health, but I think it is our delightful company. He has to go to look after a large estate where some people think of founding a town. Isn't it funny?" and she gave her bewitching laugh that was like the notes of silver bells, soft, yet clear. "They must go off and build up new places. And some people are going West, as if there wasn't room here. Have you noticed that we are overcrowded?" "Well, sometimes along the docks it looks that way." "I like a good many people. Often Merrits' is crowded, and it's funny to catch bits of sentences. And at Plummer's as well. Did you ever read right across the paper, one line in each column, and notice the odd and twisted-up sense it made? That's about the way it sounds." How bright and charming she was! Ben could not keep his eyes from her radiant face. Was she really a coquette, Chilian wondered. Yet she was so simple with it all, so seemingly careless of the effect. That was the danger of it. He lingered like one entranced. Poor young lad! Chilian began to feel sorry for him. She walked down to the gate with him, and hoped they would have a nice time when autumn came, if he meant to stay in Salem. A young man not in love would have called her a bright, merry, chatty girl. He went away with the consciousness that she liked him very much. Chilian asked her if she did. She glanced up wonderingly. "Why--he is nice, and being Polly's brother makes it--well, more familiar. Then we can talk about Anthony. I believe he didn't like him much at first, but he does now." Oh, how could he put her on her guard! She was not dreaming of love. Saltonstall's fancy had died out--no doubt this would, too. Lad's love. Was it worth ruffling up the sunny artlessness? But he would watch the young men closer now that he knew the danger line. He said simply to himself that he could not give her up to any one else so soon. There would be a long life of joy and satisfaction to her, and he knew she would not grudge him these few years. Then, too, he was quite certain she had not even had an imaginary fancy for these two men--Ben was nothing but a boy. Anthony Drayton was to join them. Miss Winn was to be Cynthia's companion. Mrs. Stevens had refused to trust her precious self to any wilds, and bear and wolf hunts, though Mr. Giles declared they were not going to take guns along. He was not an enthusiastic hunter. As for Chilian, such sport did not attract him. The journey was partly by stage, partly on horseback, and one or two days they left the ladies at the tavern where they stopped. Cynthia was charmed and amused at the uncouthness of the people and their dialect in some places, and positive good breeding in others. Anthony unearthed a college chum who was tally man at a sawmill. The new town was really making progress. A small chapel had been started, a schoolhouse built. And twenty years later it was a pretty town; in fifty years an enterprising city. "Anthony's going to be a first-class fellow. I should like to have such a son. Chilian, you and I should have married and have sons and daughters growing up. But at my time of life I should want them grown up. And smart, as well. I always feel sorry for the fathers of dull lads, when they have plenty of means to educate them. Yes, I should want mine to have a good supply of brains." Chilian Leverett enjoyed the change very much and the breath of spruce and pine was invigorating. But there was a little nervous feeling about Cynthia. Cousin Giles was somewhat of a lady's man, and he was on the continual lookout that Cynthia should not tire herself unduly, that she be assisted over the rough places, that she should have the best of everything. He was almost jealous at times. But Cynthia moved about gayly, serenely, full of merry little quips, seizing the small ridiculous events with such a sense of amusement that she inspirited them all. And he could not notice that she paid any more attention to Anthony than either of her seniors. There was such a genuine frankness in all she said and did, a charm of manner that was just herself, and had none of the arts of society, but came from a heart that overflowed with spontaneous warmth, but was not directed to any particular person. Cousin Giles declared he was sorry to get back to Boston. He could not remember when he had enjoyed such a good time. Then in a business way it had been a success, which added to his satisfaction. They really had to stay in Boston one night. They would fain have kept Cynthia for a week, but she said she was tired of just changing from one frock to another, and longed for more variety. "And I'm so glad to get back home again," she cried delightedly. "I've had a splendid time, and I like Anthony ever so much. Cousin Giles was so nice and fatherly. He ought to adopt Anthony and give him his name, and that would always make me think of father. But after all, home is best. Oh, suppose I was a waif, just being handed from one to another!" She looked frightened with the imaginary lot. She expressed emotions so easily. "You couldn't have been;" hoarsely. "Cousin Chilian, if you had not been in the world, or if you hadn't been willing to take me--I don't think father knew much about Cousin Giles--why, I must have gone to strangers." There were tears in her eyes, and a sweet melancholy in her voice. She had so much to tell Cousin Eunice that it seemed really as if she had taken the journey with them. She put on Jane's faded gingham sunbonnet and gave her voice a queer nasal twang, and talked as some of the women did up there in the wilderness, who thought a city "must be an awfully crowdy place an' she jes' didn't see how people managed to live in it. An' as fer the sea, give her dry land every time." Then she talked the French-English patois of the emigrants from Canada, and told of their funny attire, and their log huts, sometimes with only one big room, with a stone chimney in the centre, and sawed logs for seats. "They did that in Salem nigh on to two hundred years ago," said Cousin Eunice. "How much people do learn by living," remarked the little girl sagely. Then the olden round began. Being asked out to tea and inviting in return, sewing bees, quilting parties when some girl was making an outfit. And though the elders shook their heads at such a waste of time, they went out to walk in the afternoon and stopped in the shops that were making a show on Essex Street and Federal Street. There was Miss Rust's pretty millinery parlor--it had a sofa in the front room and a table with an embroidered cover that Cynthia had sent her. They talked of new styles and colors, and were aghast at the thought that royalty sometimes had as many as twenty hats and bonnets. She made pretty old lady caps as well, and she did love to hear the young girls chatter. And Molly Saunders was still baking gingerbread, that had delighted them as school children, and no one made such good spruce and sassafras beer. One evening at a dance she had a great surprise. Some one said, "Miss Cynthia Leverett, Mr. Marsh." A rather tall, ruddy, good-looking fellow, with laughing eyes and an unmistakable sailor air, held her dainty hand and studied her face. "Oh, you don't know me!" in the jolliest of tones. "And I should know you if you had been cast ashore on a rocky island and I were looking at you through a spyglass. You haven't changed in the main, only to grow prettier. You were a poor pale little thing then." "Oh, I can't think!" She flushed and smiled. Something in the hearty voice won her. "At Dame Wilby's school. And the bad boy who sat behind you--Tommy Marsh." "Oh! oh! And that day I sat on the floor!" She laughed gayly. She did not mind it a bit now. "Wasn't it funny? And the way you just sat still with the school in an uproar. You standing up there and 'sassing' back the old dame! Such a mite of a thing, too. My! but you were a plucky one!" in admiration. "And you never came to school after that. I ought to get down on my knees and beg your pardon for the sly pinches I gave you, and the times I tweaked your curly hair. I've half a mind to do it." "Oh, no!" and she made a funny gesture of alarm, and both laughed. "And I've been over there to India, where you came from, and found some people who knew your father. I've been to sea seven years, three on this last cruise, and when the _Vixen_ is repaired and refitted I'm going out again as first mate. One of these days I shall be a captain." How proud and strong he looked. Why, one couldn't help liking him. "I wonder if I might dance with you?" "Oh, do you dance? I thought sailors--and there are no girls----" and she blushed at her incoherence. "I think we do a little. Where did you get the Sailor's Hornpipe from? We're sorry about not having girls, but we make it answer. And when you get in the doldrums, or becalmed, it stirs up your blood. Oh, they are taking their places." Ben was in the same quadrille. Every time he touched her hand he gave it a pressure that made her cheeks rosier. Altogether it was a delightful evening. Cousin Chilian came for her. He had found she preferred it. "Oh, Cousin Chilian, I've had such a funny adventure. Perhaps you can recall the little boy I really hated that week I went to the dame's school. Well, he is a nice big fellow now, and we had a talk, and he has been to Calcutta and seen people who knew father. I want him to come so we can have a good long talk, and won't you ask him? You'll like him, I know. I'll find him and bring him to you, and you can ask him to come while I'm putting on my things." She hunted him up and he was very pleased to meet Mr. Leverett. She gave them quite a while, for she was chatting with the girls about some weddings on the tapis. She gave Mr. Marsh her hand and a smile that would have set almost any masculine heart beating. It must have been born with her, though it was pitifully appealing in the childhood days. Now the true, sweet nature shone through it, lending it a fascinating radiance. Mr. Leverett said he should be glad to have him call while he was in port, and the young man thanked him and said he should give himself the pleasure. "And when he does come," said the little lady in her half-coaxing, half-imperious way, "can't we have him up in the study? You see, it does very well for half a dozen of us to be down in the parlor, but it gets kind of stiff and not cheerful with just one. And you'll like to talk to him." He assented readily. Ben always came up in the study, though now he would rather have been alone with Cynthia. There were some things he meant to say, if he ever had a chance, in spite of youth and guardianship. Mr. Marsh did not lose much time considering. The very next week he called. They found him a nice, agreeable, well-informed young man, a true sailor lad, and like many a Yankee boy, he kept adding to his stock of knowledge where-ever he went. He had drawn some useful charts of seaports and islands he knew about, their products and climates, and really his descriptions were as good as a geography. "There's no doubt Salem has the lead in the foreign trade, but we're going to be pushed hard the next few years. Other cities have found out the profit in it. But we've some of the best captains, and that's what I mean to be myself." At Calcutta they still held a warm remembrance of Captain Anthony Leverett. And Marsh thought it quite a wonderful thing that the little girl had gone back and forth and braved all the perils. He told them of a pirate ship they had once battled with and the rich stores they had taken from her. The prisoners had been left on an island. "But--how would they get to their homes?" she asked. "Oh, that wasn't our lookout. They'd have done the same thing to us if they could, maybe worse. Occasionally vessels are wrecked, and sometimes it is months before a ship goes that way and sees their signal." Yes, she was glad nothing of the kind had happened to her. And Chilian, watching the little shiver, gave thanks also. Thomas Marsh enjoyed these evenings wonderfully. He was always glancing at Cynthia to see if what he said met with her approval. It seemed so strangely sweet to be thrilled at the tones of her voice and the touch of her hand. And when she looked up and smiled, the blood surged to his brain. He was quite a favorite with the girls, but no other one had that power over him. Of course, they met here and there at the different companies--he never went unless she was sure to be there, and if he asked she answered frankly. Cousin Chilian took her down to see the _Vixen_, which was nearly ready for her new cruise. He was very proud of her, so was Captain Langfelt, and they had some tea in the cabin. But some sudden knowledge came to Chilian Leverett, and he was sincerely glad the young man was going away. The evening Thomas Marsh came in to say good-bye, she was alone. "You'll find Miss Cynthia up in the study," said Jane, and thither he went two steps at a time. She had on a soft gown, and he thought she looked like some lovely flower as she rose to greet him. "I believe we are to sail to-morrow. Stores and cargo are all in, and now the captain is in haste to be off. Come down about eleven in the morning and wish me God-speed, a safe journey, and a happy return." "Yes. We were talking of it to-day. Oh, I hope you will have all, though a great many things happen in three years." Neither of them, indeed no one, could have predicted what was to happen in those eventful three years. They discussed the pleasant times, the girls and boys who had grown up and married during the whole seven years of his absence. Oh, how sweet and pretty she was! He envied the boys like Bentley Upham and two or three others who had business at home--but no, he never could have been anything but a sailor. Then he rose to go. He stood holding her hand and the red and white kept flitting over her face, her eyes were so soft and dark. They would haunt him many a night on the deck. "It's best that I am going so soon," he began in a rather tremulous voice. "Do you remember what your uncle was reading the other day about the man who wanted to be lashed to the mast when they passed the Syrens? It would be that way with me if I staid much longer. I--I wouldn't be able to help loving you, and I doubt whether it would be a good thing for either of us. I've tried all along to keep it to a plain, honest like, but I know now it is more than that. I shall take away with me the remembrance of the sweetest girl in all the world, and I have no right to spoil her life. But sometimes maybe you'll think of a far-away lad, who sends you his love and the best wishes for your happiness with the man you will love best of all." Then he pressed her hand to his lips and went slowly down the stairs. She heard the door shut. And, foolish girl, she sat down and cried, and there Cousin Chilian found her, and had to listen and absolve. "No," he said, "it would not do for you to have a sailor lad. Your tender heart would break with the anxiety. He's a nice, upright fellow, and he will never shirk a duty. But you----" What should he say to her? "I want to stay here. Oh, I wonder if you will like me when I get as old as Cousin Eunice, and the world will change and improve and I shall be queer and old-fashioned?" He held her in his arms, but he was shocked to find what was in his own heart. CHAPTER XVI PERILOUS PATHS Avis Manning's "Company" was one of the events of the season. She was a full-fledged young lady, and knowing she could have her choice of the young men of Salem, was rather difficult to capture. She and her brother-in-law were very good friends, but not lovers. And Laura, who knew where his fancy lay, counselled him to go slowly, though she was quite sure he would win in the end. "You see, she is like a child to Mr. Chilian Leverett, and he is loath to part with her. But all girls do marry sooner or later, and he isn't selfish enough to want her to stay single. If he was not so much older he might marry her--they are not own cousins, you know." "He marry her! Why, he's getting to be quite an old man," and there was a touch of disdain in his tone. "But there's half a dozen others----" "It's queer, but she isn't a flirt. She's one of the sweetest of girls--she was, at school. And with her fortune she might hold herself high. They say the Boston trustee has doubled some of it that he invested." "I wish she hadn't a cent!" the young man flung out angrily. "Well, money is not to be despised. She'll get a little tired by and by, and long for a home and children of her own, as we all do. And if you haven't found any one else----" "I never shall find any one like her;" gloomily. "Oh, there are a great many nice girls in the world." Avis knew all the best people in Salem, it was not so large, after all. And they came to the beautiful house and made merry, played "guessing words"--what we call charades, quite a new thing then--and it made no end of merriment. Of course, Cynthia was in them, was arch and piquant, and delighted the audience. Then they had supper and more dancing. One of the Turner boys, Archibald, hovered about Cynthia like a shadow. There was Ben Upham, but Edward Saltonstall warded them off to her satisfaction. But Bella Turner was shortly to be married, and Archie would have her for that evening surely. She and Mr. Saltonstall were very good friends. He was a little older than the others, and grown wary by experience. But it was queer that half a dozen girls were pulling straws for him and here was one who did not care, would not raise a finger, but, oh, how sweet her smiles were. "If you are a bridesmaid the third time, you will never be a bride," said some of the wiseacres. Cynthia tossed her proud, dainty head and laughed over it to Cousin Chilian. He looked a little grave. "Would you mind if I were an old maid? I wouldn't really be _old_ in a long while, you know. And you will always want some one. If anything should happen to Cousin Eunice, how lonely you would be." "Yes, if you went away." "I don't care for any of them very much. I like Mr. Saltonstall the best. He isn't quite so young, so--so sort of impetuous. And the boys get jealous." Then it was likely to be Mr. Saltonstall, after all! Was he going to be narrow and mean enough to keep her out of what was best in a woman's life? But he looked down the dreary years without her. He could not attach himself to the world of business as Cousin Giles did. Some of these young fellows might come into a sort of sonship with him--there was Anthony Drayton. Why was it his soul protested against them? He did not understand the deep underlying dissent that made a cruel discordance in his desire for her happiness. Mr. Saltonstall walked home from church with her and Miss Winn. And he came in one evening to ask some advice. He had cudgelled his brain for days to find just the right subject. That ended, they had a talk about chess--that was becoming quite an interest in some circles. There were several moves that puzzled him. "Come in some evening and talk them over," said Mr. Leverett. Edward Saltonstall wondered at the favor of the gods and accepted. Not as if he was in any vulgar hurry, but he dropped in, politely social, and asked if he should disturb them. Chilian had been reading Southey's "Thalaba." "Oh, no. We often read in the evening," said Cynthia. She was netting a bead bag, an industry all the rage then among the women. They really were prettier than the samplers. But she rose and brought the box of chessmen, while he rolled the table from its corner. "Will I disturb you if I stay?" she asked. "Not unless it interferes with Mr. Saltonstall's attention," said Chilian, then bit his lip. "Oh, I do not think it will;" smilingly. "You are very good to bother with a tyro. I'd like to be able to play a good game. Father is so fond of it, and Lynde seldom comes in nowadays--family cares;" laughingly. They led off very well. Saltonstall was wise enough to try his best, though out of one eye he watched the dainty fingers threading in and out among the colored beads, and could not help thinking he would rather be holding them and pressing kisses on the soft white hand. Then he made a wrong play. "We may as well turn back," said Mr. Leverett, "since the question at stake is not winning, but improving." "You are very good," returned the young man meekly. This time they went on a little further, but the result was the same. So with the third game. "Of course, I could let you win," Mr. Leverett began, "but that wouldn't conduce to the real science of the game which a good player desires. But you do very well for a young man. I should keep on, if I were you." "And annoy you with my shortcomings?" "Oh, it will not be annoyance, truly. Come in when you feel like it." "Thank you." Then he said good-night in a friendly, gentlemanly manner, and Cynthia rose and bowed. After that she gathered up her work and said good-night. Chilian sat and thought. Edward Saltonstall was a nice, steady young fellow; that is, he neither gamed, nor drank, nor went roystering round in the taverns jollying with the sailors, as some of the sons of really good families did. He would not have all his fortune to make, and his father's business was well established. The sons would take it. The two daughters were well married. What more could he ask for Cynthia? She was not so young now and would know her own mind. Yet it gave his heart a sharp, mysterious wrench, a longing for what he was putting away, the essence of the solemn ideals of love that run through the intricate meshes of the human soul. He knew that he loved her, that he wanted her for his very own, and his conscience told him it was not right. Of all her admirers he liked this one the best. Under other circumstances he would have considered him an admirable young man. Saltonstall dropped in now and then, not too often. He did not mean to startle any one with his purpose, but to let it grow gradually. Still, at the last assembly of the season, his attentions were somewhat pronounced. It was partly her doings, she was sheltering herself from other rather warm indications. A few days later she went over to Polly Loring's with her work. Polly's bag had somehow gone wrong. Cynthia had to cut the thread and ravel out a round. The baby was to be admired as well as the chair seat Polly had begun in worsted work, which was the new accomplishment. And they talked over various matters: who had new gowns, new lovers, and new babies. But every time she came almost to the subject so near her heart, Cynthia made an elusive detour. Then she ventured out straight with her question. "Cynthia, are you going to take Ed Saltonstall?" Cynthia's face was scarlet. "He hasn't asked me, he hasn't even asked Cousin Chilian," but her voice was not quite steady. "How do you know? It was talked of at the assembly--the two men were a good deal together. And if you don't mean anything, Cynthia, you'll get yourself gossiped about, and you'll spoil some lives," declared Polly spiritedly. This thing had been seething in her mind, and she was going to have it out at the risk of breaking friendship. "I don't want to spoil any one's life. And I've never really kept company with any one." The keeping company was the great test. When the young man came steady one night in the week, to Sunday tea, and went to church with the girl alone, the matter was as good as declared. "But--well, I don't know how you've done it, but they hang about you and it does upset them. First it's one, then it's another. You ought to know. You ought to settle upon one and let the others alone." Polly had acquired a good deal of married wisdom, and she really did love Cynthia. Ben loved her, too. "But suppose I didn't want any of them?" and Cynthia tried to laugh, but it was a poor shadowy attempt. "Oh, nonsense! You don't mean to be an old maid. No girl does. But it is time you stopped playing fast and loose with hearts. Now there's Ben. You know he's loved you this long while. And we all like you so. Last fall he quite gave up and went to see Jenny Willing. She'll make a good wife and she's a nice girl, though she hasn't your fortune. Mother's been trying to make him believe that you are looking higher." "Oh, Polly--I never scarcely think of my fortune," Cynthia interrupted, her face full of distressful color. "Well, I'm not saying that you do. Ben's getting along first-rate. He has a college degree and father isn't poor. I know several girls who would jump at a chance for him. Of course, we would _all_ rather have you. Then at Avis Manning's party you gave him the sweetest of your smiles, and lured him back." Oh, she recalled it with a kind of shame. It was to keep off Archie Turner and Mr. Saltonstall. And then for a while he had grown troublesome. If they could be merely friends! "The thing is just here, Cynthia. I know I'm speaking plainly and you may get angry. If you don't want Ben, let him alone. A young man begins to think of a home and a wife of his own, and when he likes a girl very much--yes, I will say it, she can make or mar. She can take him away from some other nice girl. And people now are beginning to say you are a flirt. I think Jenny will make Ben a nice wife, and if you don't want him----" "Oh, Polly, I don't want any of them. You can't think how delightful life is with Cousin Chilian. I couldn't be as happy anywhere else, or with any other person. I can't make myself fall in love as all of you girls have, and think this one or that one perfect. Something must be wrong with me. And I'm very sorry. I'm not a bit jealous when they take to other girls. Why, I'd be glad to be Jenny's bridesmaid if she wanted me to." Cynthia paused and mopped the tears from her cheeks. Polly was a little subdued. Cynthia was taking this so meekly. But she said rather spitefully, "You had better marry Mr. Leverett." Ah, Polly, it was a dangerous seed to fling at a young girl. And it dropped on a bit of out of the way fruitful soil. Cynthia rose quietly. She was very pale. She began to roll up her work. "Now I think you can go on with it," she said. "If you get in trouble again, let me know." Then the two friends looked at each other until the tears came into their eyes. "I'm very sorry," murmured Cynthia in a broken voice. "But you see----" "Yes. I understand. I hope Ben will be very happy." Afterward Polly sat down and cried. She knew Ben loved Cynthia so. They had counted on having her in the family. But she felt quite certain now that Ed Saltonstall would get her. And he was a flirt, going with every pretty girl, every new girl for a little while. Cynthia went home in a very sober mood. Why had they all cared so much about her? They had nice attractive qualities, but why could they not look at her just as she looked at them! She did not know very much about men and that with them pursuit often merged into the strong desire for possession, which she did not understand. But she did not want to be blamed. She would have none of them. Cousin Chilian was more to her. If he seldom danced and was never very gay, there were so many other requirements to life; there was something in his nature to which hers responded readily. Then suddenly she seemed to have lost the clue. She experienced a season of bewilderment. Was Cousin Chilian meaning she should take Mr. Saltonstall for a lover? He surely gave him opportunities he had given no other. Sometimes he excused himself and went out. There were some difficulties with the mother country that men were discussing. She really felt a little awkward at being left alone with Mr. Saltonstall. Not only that, but it awoke a strange terror in her soul that he should come so near; it was as if her whole being rose in arms. Occasionally Chilian spoke of her marriage--he had always said she was too young, in a protesting manner. So on one occasion she gained courage. "Do you mean--that is--you would like to--have me married, Cousin Chilian?" Married! It was as if she had given him a stab. And yet was not that just the thing he had been thinking of? "Why, you see, Cynthia," he made his voice purposely cold, "I am much older than you. I may die some day. Cousin Eunice will no doubt go before me, and you would not like to go on alone. Then Giles is older even than I. One has to think of these things. Yes, it would be nice to know you were happily settled." "And why couldn't a woman live alone as well as a man? I could have Miss Winn, and a housekeeper, and a man----" "It's a lonely life for a woman." "But why not for a man?" "Oh, well, that is different. Only a few men do. And they grow queer and opinionated." A fortnight ago she would have protested and said, "You are not old, you are not opinionated," in her eager, girlish manner. Now she was hurt, and she could not tell why; so she kept silent. And she began to note a change in him. The delightful harmony in which they had lived fell below the major key into minors, that touched and pierced her. He did not come so often to listen to her music, to ask her for a song, to watch while she painted some pretty flower, to go around with her training roses, or cutting them for the house. She put a few of them everywhere; she did not like great bunches, only such things as grew in clusters, lilacs and syringas and long sprays of clematis. She missed the little walks around, and the dear talks they used to have. She felt somewhat deceitful in planning adroitly. She made Miss Winn go to church with her, and when they came home with Mr. Saltonstall they sat on the porch together. A girl thinking of a lover would have asked him in. Then she went down to Boston, and Anthony came over as often as he could. Surely there was no danger with him. All this time Chilian Leverett was having a hard fight with himself. He was really ashamed of having been conquered by what he called a boy's romantic passion. He could excuse himself for the early lapse; he was a boy then. His honor and what he called good sense were mightily at war with this desire that well-nigh overmastered him. True, men older than he had married young wives. But this child had been entrusted to him in a sacred fashion by her dying father; he must place before her the best and richest of life, even if it condemned him to after-years of joyless solitude. For it was not as a father he loved her, though he had played a little at fatherhood in the beginning. She was so companionable, they had so many similar tastes. He was so fond of reading to an appreciative listener, and even as he sat in the darkness, when she did not know he was alone in the study, he could see her lovely eyes raised in their tender light. He thought this her unusual wisdom and discernment, never dreaming it had been mostly his training and her receptiveness. And to think of the house without her! Why, going out of it in her wedding gown would be almost as if she had been laid in her shroud and shut away. Of course, he could not have her here and see her love another. Giles Leverett's dream was much happier. In his mind he saved her for his favorite. When Anthony was through--and he was putting in law, with the classics--he would take him in his office, where he would find much business made to his hand. The house was big enough for them all, and he had grown curiously interested in young people. Anthony was very fond of his sweet, fascinating cousin--they all were. He did not know whether there was any one in Salem quite good enough for her. Saltonstall was a rather trifling fellow, whose fancies were evanescent. But Mr. Ed Saltonstall had a good friend in Mrs. Stevens, and she counselled him not to be too ardent in his pursuit. She said pleasant little things about him without any effusiveness. She considered his friendship with her very charming--young men were not generally devoted to middle-aged women. Once she shrewdly wondered why he had not made some errand down. Altogether it was a pleasant visit, though Cynthia kept revolving her duty, if such there was in the case. A blind, mysterious asking for something haunted her, something it would be sad to miss out of her life. Then she came home alone in the stage. There was a property dispute going on, where Mr. Leverett was an important witness for a friend. When the stage stopped, Rachel and Jane both ran out and gave her a joyful welcome. "Oh, dear!" exclaimed Cousin Eunice, "we are so glad to get you back. You are the light _of_ the house, isn't she?" glancing at the other. "Even Chilian has been mopey, though I think he isn't well. He is getting thin, too, and goodness knows he had no flesh to lose. Oh, my dear, I hope you will never go away again while I live;" and she gave a long sigh as the girl left the room. She came down presently in a cheerful light frock and began to tell Cousin Eunice and Jane what she had seen and heard. She was in the full tide of this, eager, bright, and flushing when Chilian entered. He greeted her rather languidly. Yes, he had grown thinner, and Cousin Giles was putting on too much flesh and growing jollier. Chilian did not look well and an ache went all over Cynthia's body, every nerve being sympathetic. He was not silent, however; he asked questions, but she thought he was hardly paying attention to the answers. He remained down in the sitting-room and read his _Gazette_, now and then making some comment, or answering some query of Cousin Eunice. It was not nine yet when he rose and said, "He was very tired; if they would excuse him, he would go to bed." They all went presently. She was glad to be alone in the room, glad there was no moon, and she turned her face over on the pillow and cried softly. After all, life was a riddle--two ways and not knowing which to take, both having a curiously lonely ending. Could she not bear it better alone? If he should go away as her father had done, if she should stay here in the old house, and then Cousin Eunice would fold her hands in that silent clasp, Rachel would slip into old womanhood, Jane would marry, she was keeping company now. There would be other Janes and she---- On the other hand would be love, marriage, children maybe, a pleasant home. Living along side by side, as other people did. She did not try to shut out either vision. Which should she take? Was life just for one's self? She was not morbid. It was only in religion that people took out their very souls and examined them for lurking sins; the days' duties were what must be accomplished, whether or no. She knew she was not very religious, the deep things seemed beyond her grasp. And there was a certain joyousness in her love for sunshine, flowers, people, and all the attractive things of life. She was deeply grateful, she raised her heart in thankfulness to God for every good gift. And now she took up the daily duties cheerfully. It was not their fault the shadow had fallen over them. Some days afterward she was rambling around aimlessly, when she met a girl friend, and they chatted about various matters. "Oh," exclaimed the friend, "there'll be another wedding in the autumn, and Betty Upham is keeping steady company. I used to have an idea that you and Ben would make a match----" "It's Jenny Willing," she interrupted. "And I am heartily glad." "You were all such friends;" looking puzzled. "And I hope we will go on being friends. I have always liked Jenny." "She was awfully afraid you'd cut her out. You know he did fancy you first. I think she would have been very unhappy if she had missed him. I don't see what there is about you, Cynthia;" studying her intently. "You are pretty, but there are some handsome girls in Salem. And they run after Ed Saltonstall as if there was no other man in town. And my advice to you is to seize on him, for I think your chance best. He's an awful flirt, though. I think good-looking men always are." Cynthia flushed. Why should these things be profaned by foolish gossip. Polly came over one afternoon. She had accomplished the bag and was proud enough of it. And she announced Bentley's engagement. "They will be married in the early fall; they are not going to build, but have part of that double house of Nelsons'. She'll make a fine, economical wife, and that is what men need who are trying to get along. Assemblies and all that are not the thing for prudent married people." "And one gets tired of them." She had a feeling just then that she should never want to dance any more. Cynthia was glad to have him settled, glad Jenny Willing had the man she loved. And the last time he had come back to her she had held up her finger to him thoughtlessly, to shield herself from some other pointed attentions. It had been a mean thing to do. But she had only meant it for that evening, and he had gone on importunately. She was ashamed of it now. Yes, she had better marry; then no one would be pleading for favors, mistaking a simple smile for deeper meaning. Was her smile different from that of other girls? She watched Cousin Chilian narrowly. Was the old dear freedom between them gone? He seemed rather abstracted. He did not call her into the study, he went out oftener of an evening. Mr. Saltonstall would pass by, then turn and walk up the path and sit down on the step. This would occur several times a week. He asked her to ride with him, but she shrank from that. She went over one evening on special invitation, when Chilian was to play chess with the father. Mrs. Saltonstall took her in quite as if she was one of the family, and really was very sweet to her. And the old gentleman was fatherly. That seemed to settle it for her, rather the fact that sank deeper in her mind every day that Cousin Chilian wished her to marry and that this young man was his preference. She allowed him to come a little nearer, to hold her hand, to take nameless small freedoms, and he was always delicate. Would he be satisfied without all she could not help withholding? Would it be right to give him a half love? But then how could she help loving Cousin Chilian, who had been so tender to her in childhood? She would be gladly content to stay without any nearer tie between them; of course, that other could not be thought of. One night Mr. Saltonstall asked her in a manly fashion. And suddenly a great white light shot up in her heart, and loving one man she knew she had no right to deceive another, to live a deception all her life long, to cheat him--yes, it was that. Better a hundred times to live out her flawed life alone. "Oh, I cannot," she murmured. "I--I"--she choked down the strangling sob. "My little darling, give me the opportunity to teach you what love really is. You do not know." CHAPTER XVII THE FLOWERING OF THE SOUL Cynthia had said coldly that she did not wish to marry at present, perhaps never. "I have been trying to love you to--to please some one else, and it is a compliment for you to ask me. But any woman ought to be sure before she makes a life-long promise. I must be honest--with you, with myself." Something in the solemn tone awed him. He had not been looking at the serious side of love. She was pretty, bright, and winsome, with a good deal of Puritan simplicity, a great power of enjoyment and difficult to win. He liked to do the winning himself. He liked to find some new qualities in girls, and Cynthia, with all her daintiness, had many sides that surprised one. She had been brought up by a man--that made the difference. "We will wait a little," he said. "Talk to your cousin about it. I think it will all come right. You are the first woman I ever desired to marry, and I have been fond of girls, too." That would have flattered some women. She said good-night in a strained, breathless tone, and vanished through the door. He sat and thought. There was no other lover, he was quite sure. She went to bed at once. She did not cry, she was somehow stunned at this revelation about herself, for she had resolved to accept him and this sudden protest told her that it was quite impossible. If Cousin Chilian was disappointed, if he was tired of her, there was a warm welcome in Boston. She did not sleep much. Rachel noted her heavy eyes, and the expression as if she might be secretly upbraiding fate. What if Mr. Saltonstall had been trifling? Chilian went up to his study. He felt languid, he nearly always did now. He took a book and sat by the open window. Two tall trees hid the prospect, except a space of blooming garden. To-day a small outlook pleased him, for his life was to be made narrower. She would come and tell him--shut the golden gate forever. He could not, would not, enter their paradise. Let him keep quite on the outside. She came in a soft, white gown that clung to her virginal figure. The swelling-out period had passed, even sleeves had collapsed to a small puff, and for house wear the arms and neck were left bare. The book was a Greek play. The letters danced before her eyes as she stood there. He looked off the book, but not up at her. "Cousin Chilian, I want to tell you"--her voice had the peculiar softness that one uses to try to cover the hurt one cannot help giving--"Mr. Saltonstall was here last evening. He has asked me to marry him." It seemed to her the silence lasted moments. Then he said in an incurious tone, "Well?" "I--will you be angry or disappointed when I confess that I cannot, that I do not love him." "Oh, Cynthia, child; what do you know about love?" he said impatiently. "Enough to know that it would be wrong to take a man's love and give him nothing in return." Now her voice was steady, convincing. He had a sudden thought. Like a vision the stalwart form of the young sailor rose before him. He had carried admiration, yes, love in his eyes. What if he had carried more than that away? "Cynthia, is there some one else, some one you _could_ love----" "There is some one else." Her tone was very low, but brave. That admission would settle the matter. "Are you to wait three years for him?" "For whom?" in surprise. Then he glanced up. Her face, that had been lily-white, was flushed from brow to neck. What was there in the beautiful, entreating eyes? "Cynthia?" All his firmness gave way. His arm stole softly around her, drew her a trifle down. "Tell me! Tell me!" he cried, yet he had no idea he was asking her to lay her heart bare. There was still the boy Anthony. "Cousin Chilian, if a woman loved very much, would it be a shame to her if, unasked, she----" Her head sank down on his shoulder. He felt the warm, throbbing breath on his cheek. He drew her closer. Did the slim, palpitating body betray its secret? "Oh, Cynthia, child, the most precious thing in all the world to me, tell me that I will not have to give you to another, that I may keep you to myself. For I cannot comprehend how so great a joy could come to me. And whether I would have the right to take your sweet young life, that should be replete with the joys of youth, with the gladness that is its proper birthright." "If I gave it to you? If I could never have given it to any other?" He drew her down closer, and the gentle yielding, the sort of rapturous sigh, answered him better than any words. He pressed kisses on the unresisting lips, kisses that then were sacred to affianced lovers and husbands. Was it an hour or half a lifetime? He inclined her to his knee as he had when she was a little girl, but at length he came back to his senses. "Cynthia," he began with tender gravity, "there are many points to consider. Do you know that I am more than double your age----" "Don't tell that to me. Isn't love as sweet?" Could he deny it in the face of that ravishing smile, those appealing eyes. "Still--the world will think about it. And you are a rich young woman, you could take your pick of lovers----" "But they are all so troublesome," she interrupted. "And one gets affronted with the other. And if I picked very much I might be called a flirt, perhaps I have been. I didn't want them, only to dance and be merry with, and there are so many pretty girls in the world--enough for all of them." He smiled a little and it gave her a heartache to see how thin he had grown, and there were new creases in his forehead that had been so fair and smooth. "And if some day you should repent?" "I'm not going to repent. Why should one when one gets the thing one wanted?" There was a touch of the old brightness in her tone. Had she really wanted him? "I've been very naughty with all these lovers, haven't I? But no one came near enough to really ask me that question until last night, though Mr. Marsh thought he would if he were going to stay. And Cousin Chilian, I had made up my mind truly, I thought, for I liked Mr. Saltonstall very much, and it seemed to me you wanted me to----" Her voice died away in pathos. "I did. Oh, you must know the worst of me. When I found you were growing into my very heart, and I began to feel jealous of the young men, I took myself in hand as a most reprehensible old fellow. But I found you had entwined yourself in every fibre of my heart, and it was hard indeed to uproot you." "And you really tried?" Her tone was upbraiding. "I tried like an honest, upright man. I shall never be ashamed of the effort. I would not mar or spoil your life. You see you might have loved some of these brave young lads. You might have been very happy with them." "Oh, you can't have but one husband;" in laughing gayety. He flushed at her mischief. "I wonder when you began to love me? And what has made you so cold and distant, as if you were taking your affection away?" "I was--I was--Heaven forgive me! I was learning to live without you; to go back to a life more solitary than it was before you came. And, Cynthia, you were not altogether a welcome guest. I did not know what to do with a little girl. I was set in my ways. I did not like to be disturbed. I could have sent a boy off to school. And Elizabeth thought it a trouble, too. You must read your father's letter and see the trust he reposed in me. But you were such a strange, shy little thing, and so delicate in all your ways. You never touched an article without permission, you handled books so gently, you never made dog's-ears, or crumpled a page. And that winter you were ill--and the faith you had in his return. How many times my heart ached for you. After that I could not have given you up, and I fell into a sort of belief that it would go on this always. When the lovers began to come, I found I must awake from my delusion. And then I knew that an oldish fellow could love a sweet girl in her first bloom, but that it would be a selfish, unpardonable thing." "Not if she loved him!" She raised her face in all its sweet bravery of color. "But it was his duty to let her see what pleasure there was in the world for youth; it was the promise to her dead father, who had confided his treasure to him. And even now he hesitates, lest you shall not have the best of everything." "I shall have the best;" with winning confidence. "I loved your mother. I was a young lad, and she some five years older. I suppose I was like a young brother to her, because your father, her lover, had been here so much. And somehow, you slipped into the place where there never had been any other." "It must have been kept for me," she said gravely. "And now I give you warning that I shall never go out of it. No place could ever be so dear as this house with all its memories. I am glad you knew and loved my mother." It came noon before they were talked out, or before they had settled only one point, about which she would have her way. She wrote a pretty note to Mr. Saltonstall, reiterating some things she had said the evening before, and acknowledging that when she had tried to accept him, she had found her heart was another's, "and you are worthy of a woman's best love," she added, which did comfort him. Still it puzzled him a good deal, but he finally settled upon Anthony and thought it a rather foolish choice. No doubt but that Giles Leverett was back of it all. They told Cousin Eunice and Miss Winn. The former cried for sheer joy. She seemed older than her years, but she was well and bid fair to live years yet. "Then you will never go away. I could not live without you, and as for Chilian----" "It would only be half a life," returned the lover, and he kissed Cousin Eunice. Miss Winn hardly knew whether to be pleased or not. She liked Mr. Saltonstall very much for his gayety, good humor, and fine presence, and then he had the divine gift of youth to match hers. Would she not tire of Chilian Leverett's grave life? CHAPTER XVIII THE PASSING OF OLD SALEM After all, they were foolish lovers. She did not hoard up any sweetness. If he could not look forward to so many years, she must give him a double portion. That was her only regret about him, and she never confessed that. He was surprised at himself. If she had loved another, the wound of loneliness must have bled inwardly until it sapped his life. Oh, how daintily sweet she was! Every day he found some new trait. "You see," she explained to Miss Winn, "we shall all keep together. Father trusted you to the uttermost, and you have been nobly loyal. I couldn't do without you. And no one could look so well after Cousin Eunice, who will keep growing older." That was true enough. She was very well content in her home, and at her time of life did not care to try a new one. Cynthia was almost like a child to her. Meanwhile matters had not gone prosperously with old Salem, England had claimed her right of search, against which the country strongly protested. The British government issued orders, and the French Emperor decrees, forbidding ships of neutrals to enter the ports, or engage in trade with their respective enemies. This crippled the trade of Salem. Then there had been the embargo, which for a while closed the ports. But the town went on improving. Fortunes had been made and now were being spent. But much of the shipping lay idle. Yet the social life went on, there was marrying and giving in marriage. Of course, there was some gossip about the Saltonstall fiasco. No one, at least very few, supposed a sensible girl would give up such an opportunity to settle herself. Miss Cynthia would no doubt use her best efforts to get him back. She seemed superbly indifferent to the gossip. At first Chilian insisted upon an engagement of some length, so that she might be sure of the wisdom of the step. But she only laughed in her charming fashion, and declared she would not give up the old house, much more its owner. But they had a quiet wedding, with only the choicest friends, and then they went to Boston to escape the wonderings. Cousin Giles was really displeased. "It's an unfair thing for an old fellow like you to do. And you had money enough of your own; her fortune should have gone to help some nice young fellow along. Why, really Cynthia has hardly outgrown childhood. You might have been her father!" "Hardly!" returned Chilian dryly. On their return the house was opened and really crowded with guests. Cynthia was in her most splendid attire. Happiness had certainly improved Chilian Leverett, he had gained some flesh and looked younger. The most beautiful belongings had been brought out to decorate the rooms. "For I am not going to have them stored away for possible grandchildren," she declared gayly. And the guests had a charming welcome. The younger girls were truly glad she had made her election, and no one could deny that she was very much in love with her husband. Neither had need to marry for money, since both had fortunes. And they wished her health and happiness with all their hearts. Jane had said to her, "Mis' Leverett, there's an old adage: "'Change the name and not the letter, You marry for worse and not for better.'" Cynthia laughed. "I'm not going to let signs or omens trouble me. And I haven't even changed my name, so the letter cannot count. And it is one of the good old Salem names. It was my dear father's." One incident touched Cynthia deeply. Eunice took her up in the garret one day and exhumed from a chest the beautiful white quilt of Elizabeth's handiwork. Pinned to one corner was a card, "For my little Cynthia." "Only a few days before she had her stroke she made me write this and go up and pin it on the quilt. Maybe she'd had a warning, people do sometimes. I supposed she'd leave it to Chilian. Oh, my dear, she'd be so glad to have you go on in the old house if she could know." Eunice wiped the tears from her eyes. Cynthia bent over and kissed among the stitches the poor fingers had toiled at day after day, sorry for the toil, glad for the love that came at the last. The Leverett house opened its doors with a generous hospitality. People, men at least, began to think of something beside money-making, and some fine plans were broached. Chilian Leverett seemed to grow younger. Cynthia should not miss the joys of youth out of her life. He did something more than dance minuets, for her sake he essayed quadrilles. The exquisite motion with her, her dainty hand in his, or at times resting on his shoulder, filled him with an all-pervading delight. "Chilian, do you realize that you are a really beautiful dancer?" she said one evening after they had returned from a small company. "Then I must have caught it from you. In my youth dancing was considered frivolous." "And in India you hire the men and women to dance for you, and follow the enchanting motions with your eye. But it is so warm out there." She had been playing one evening when she started up, exclaiming, "Let us try that new thing--the waltz. It is just made for two people very much in love." "It is?" He smiled in the eager face. It was said that she could twist him around her finger. "Why, we have no music." "I can sing the measure, just la, la!" and she started the melody. There were two long paths of moonlight through the wide-open shutters. Moonlight and sunshine were welcome visitors. She held out her hands. Just that way she had charmed others, and he yielded to the seductive influence. For, oh, she was so young and sweet. It was a little awkward at first, but they soon found the steps. It was rather slow and graceful, not the mad whirl of later times. It _was_ considered rather reprehensible, but between husband and wife it was right enough. They found it very fascinating. After a while a sort of grave, sweet seriousness came over her. She liked to sit in the study and have him read poetry to her while she sewed. She had never loved sewing, but now she had taken a fancy to it. Dainty little lacey things, with the softest of muslins, treasures that had come from India. For there were stacks of towels and sheets and useful articles, so why should she bother about them? Jane was married and a middle-aged, homeless widow was very glad to come. Miss Winn took the head of the housekeeping, and Cousin Eunice was very willing. Then there came to them both a little son. Women often dream of babies of their own, but men have so many outside interests. There really were people at that time who thought children a boon and blessing of the Lord. Chilian Leverett was amazed, rendered speechless with joy. His own little son, Cynthia's little son, the life and love of both hearts. His cup of joy and thankfulness ran over. For he had never imagined there could be such perfect bliss. He thought over the time when the little girl had come, and he had not wanted her. Now she had brought him life's choicest blessing. Meanwhile events ran on which were to thrill all hearts and make stirring history. For war had been declared. Handsome, pleasure-loving Edward Saltonstall volunteered in the army. Perilous times there were on the northern frontier, dreadful losses, few gains, until suddenly the Lake battles changed the aspect and won the splendid victories that thrilled every heart. But Salem's almost meteoric prosperity came to a sudden halt, for there was war on the high seas as well. The whole mercantile marine was refitted and turned out to win what it might in other channels. Privateering was held right enough in those days. There was the electrifying capture of the _Guerrière_ and her being towed into Boston with Captain Dacres as a prisoner, and another to be quite as famous, that of the _United States_ and the _Macedonia_, where the American loss seemed incredibly small. Other splendid victories as well. But it was not until February, 1815, after nearly four years of struggle and war, that peace was again declared with the Colonies as victorious. America had won her right to the liberty of the seas, as well as that of the land. But the supremacy of trade no longer could be claimed for Salem. Other ports were built up, other markets opened. Cities saw the advantage of foreign trade. American products were shipped hither and thither. No one city had the monopoly. But romances flourished all the same and were to be handed down to other generations. There was the old Forester house, with its legends, its lovely gardens, and fine pictures. And the beautiful house of Elias Hasket Derby, in which he had lived but such a short time. No one felt rich enough then to undertake such a costly establishment, and finally the estate came into possession of the city, and the big area was named Derby Square, and a commodious market built and a Town Hall. When that was opened President Monroe made a visit to Salem, and was enthusiastically received there, citizens thronging to see him. The next day Judge Story entertained him, and Mr. Stephen White, of Washington Square, gave a ball in his honor. The Leveretts were among the guests, and Captain Edward Saltonstall, who had won promotions by brave conduct under General Harrison, but was now a private citizen and a fine-looking man, with a new bevy of girls as eager for his attentions as the others were seven or eight years before. There was another guest who claimed, or at least received, a good share of attention. This was the naval Captain Marsh, who had been in the encounter between the _Macedonia_ and the frigate _United States_, Captain Decatur, which was considered one of the greatest of the naval battles. For his bravery then and afterward, he had been promoted and was now a captain in command of a fine vessel. Cynthia was delighted to see him; but she said he must visit them to talk over matters and the wonders that had happened to him. She would not dance any, although she was in the grand march with her husband. Mr. Saltonstall she saw quite frequently. His parents were quite old people and he was devoted to them. She wondered at times if any old fancy kept him single. If so, she was sincerely sorry. For she had been very, very happy with the husband of her love. And in the household there were two merry, frolicking boys, and a sweet little girl, with her mother's eyes. Captain Marsh did come and he was delighted with his visit. The little boys climbed over him as if they had known him always. He told the story of the terrific battle at the Canaries, and many another battle that had left him unscathed. "And I used to think if I came back to old Salem and found you unmarried, it would go hard with me if I could not win you," he said to Cynthia in his cordial, manly fashion. "And I confess to you now if Dame Wilby had struck you that day at school, I should have rushed at her like a tiger. I like that remembrance of you standing there so brave and defying." They both laughed over it. She had changed very little. Chilian said she grew younger with the birth of every baby. She was happy and merry, truly the light of the house, and Cousin Eunice was the happiest grandmother in all of Salem. Miss Winn shared their joys--so far there had been no sorrows. Chilian grew a little stouter with advancing years, which really improved him. He took a warm interest in the new projects. There was the Essex Historical Society, gathering portraits and relics of the older Salem, and the East India Marine Society was enlarging its scope. The new Salem was to be curiously intellectual, historic, and one might say antiquarian. Modernized and transformed in many respects, it still has the old-time fragrance of sandalwood and incense when the chests in the old garrets are turned over for fine things that came from India a century before. Cousin Giles aged more rapidly, but then he was considerably older than Chilian. He did adopt young Anthony, and insisted upon his taking the name of Leverett, and a share of the business burthens. And he married quite to the approval of the elder man, though not such an heiress as Cynthia. And no one was dreaming that the little boy born in Union Street in 1804 was to add such interest and lustre to his native town that the scenes of his curious wizard-like romances were to be settled upon by those interested in them and handed down as actual occurrences. Do we not all know Hester Prynne and Mr. Dimmesdale, Phebe and Hephzibah and Judge Pyncheon, and weird old Dr. Grimshawe, and many another that have flitted through the pages of Hawthorne's strange romances, leaving Salem the richer by the memories? There was another little girl who was to grow up and take a great interest in all these things, and finally to see the old Leverett house pass away, after its more than two hundred years. But it was a new and doubly interesting Salem then, with its several evolutions that have passed and gone. She lived a long and happy life, this little girl who came back to her birthplace consigned to Chilian Leverett's care, and won his love that never changed, or grew any less. Her sons never tired of the old reminiscences. Many of the old houses were still standing. Here President Washington had been entertained; here the artist Copley had lived and painted portraits that are heirlooms; Justice Story and his gifted son, poet and artist; Prescott, the historian, and many another of whom the country is proud to-day, and civilians whose fine thought and noble work have made the city a Mecca for intellectual tourists, and a beautiful and interesting abiding-place for her citizens, a town of three striking epochs that linger not only in tradition but in history. * * * * * Transcriber's Notes: Obvious punctuation errors were corrected. Table of Contents, the final "VIII" was changed to "XVIII". Page 41, "spinnet" changed to "spinet". (a thin-legged spinet) Page 148, "exlaining" changed to "explaining". (fond of explaining) Page 174, "Chilan's" changed to "Chilian's". (Cousin Chilian's memory) Page 200, "detatched" changed to "detached". (of detached sounds) Page 216, "beutifully" changed to "beautifully". (a beautifully engraved) 
26282	----	Columbian Historical Novels _By JOHN R. MUSICK_ _With Reading Courses_ Being a Complete History of the United States from the Time of Columbus to the Present Day ONE HUNDRED PHOTOGRAVURES, HALF-TONE PLATES, MAPS OF THE PERIODS AND NUMEROUS PEN-AND-INK DRAWINGS, BY F. A. CARTER THE R. H. WHITTEN COMPANY _New York_ _Los Angeles_ Copyright, 1906, by FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY _Printed in the United States of America_ [Illustration] [Illustration] COLUMBIAN HISTORICAL NOVELS VOLUME VII THE WITCH OF SALEM _or_ _Credulity Run Mad_ by JOHN R MUSICK _Illustrations by_ FREELAND A. CARTER THE R. H. WHITTEN COMPANY _New York_ _Los Angeles_ Copyright, 1893, by the FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY [_Registered at Stationers' Hall, London, Eng._] [Illustration] _Printed in the United States_ PREFACE. It is a difficult task to go back to ages by-gone, to divest ourselves of what we know and are and form a clear conception of generations that have been, of their experiences, objects, modes of life, thought and expression. It is a task better suited to the novelist than the historian, and even the former treads on dangerous ground in attempting it. One of the prime objects of the Columbian Historical Novels is to give the reader as clear an idea as possible of the common people, as well as of the rulers of the age. The author has endeavored at the risk of criticism to clothe the speeches of his characters in the dialect and idioms peculiar to the age in which they lived. In the former volumes, sentences most criticised are those taken literally as spoken or written at the time. Though it would seem that a few critics grow more severe the nearer an author approaches the truth, yet the greater number of thinking men and women who review these books are students themselves, and the author who adheres to the language of a by-gone age has nothing to fear from them. The "Witch of Salem" is designed to cover twenty years in the history of the United States, or from the year 1680 to 1700, including all the principal features of this period. Charles Stevens of Salem, with Cora Waters, the daughter of an indented slave, whose father was captured at the time of the overthrow of the Duke of Monmouth, are the principal characters. Samuel Parris, the chief actor in the Salem tragedy, is a serious study, and has been painted, after a careful research, according to the conception formed of him. No greater villain ever lived in any age. He had scarce a redeeming feature. His religion was hypocrisy, superstition, revenge and bigotry. His ambition led him to deeds of atrocity unsurpassed. Having drawn the information on which this story is founded from what seem the most reliable sources, and woven the story in a way which it is hoped will be pleasing and instructive, we send this volume forth to speak for itself. JOHN R. MUSICK. Kirksville, Mo., Oct. 1st, 1892. TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE CHAPTER I. THE MAN WITH THE BOOK, 1 CHAPTER II. PENNSYLVANIA, 23 CHAPTER III. THE INDENTED SLAVE, 43 CHAPTER IV. MR. PARRIS AND FLOCK, 65 CHAPTER V. A NIGHT WITH WITCHES, 81 CHAPTER VI. THE CHARTER OAK, 101 CHAPTER VII. TWO MEN WHO LOOK ALIKE, 116 CHAPTER VIII. MOVING ONWARD, 134 CHAPTER IX. CHARLES AND CORA, 152 CHAPTER X. CHARLES AND MR. PARRIS, 172 CHAPTER XI. ADELPHA LEISLER, 191 CHAPTER XII. LEISLER'S FATE, 216 CHAPTER XIII. CREDULITY RUN MAD, 234 CHAPTER XIV. THE FATE OF GOODY NURSE, 256 CHAPTER XV. "YOUR MOTHER A WITCH!" 276 CHAPTER XVI. ESCAPE AND FLIGHT, 290 CHAPTER XVII. OUT OF THE FRYING PAN INTO THE FIRE, 306 CHAPTER XVIII. SUPERSTITION REIGNS, 327 CHAPTER XIX. THE WOMAN IN BLACK, 346 CHAPTER XX. CONCLUSION, 364 HISTORICAL INDEX, 383 CHRONOLOGY, 391 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE William Penn making his treaty of peace and friendship with the Indians (See page 32), _Frontispiece_ "Take it away!" 1 "Cannot rise! Prythee, what ails you, friend?" 11 Seizing a firebrand, he searched for the print of the cloven foot, 21 William Penn, 27 "We all rose in the air on broomsticks," 95 Charles Stevens, at one sweep, snuffed out every candle on the table, 108 The Charter Oak, 113 The sturdy wife assailed him with her mop-stick and drove him away, 147 "Then you may both go down--down to the infernal regions together!" 189 "Which of the twain shall it be?" 213 Eight men, bearing litters, were at the door. All were dripping with water, 233 At every stroke he repeated, "I do this in the name of the Lord," 239 "Its motions were quicker than those of my axe," 250 The sheriff brought the witch up the broad aisle, her chains clanking as she stepped, 274 The jail trembled to its very centre, 301 Nought was to be seen, save massacre and pillage on every side, 310 The resolute father continued to fire as he retreated, 320 Lieut.-Gov. Stoughton, 330 George Waters cut two stout sticks for crutches, 353 "Charles Stevens, do you seek death?" 371 Cotton Mather, 380 Witches' Hill, 382 Map of the period, 306 THE WITCH OF SALEM. CHAPTER I. THE MAN WITH THE BOOK. Through shades and solitudes profound, The fainting traveler wends his way; Bewildering meteors glare around, And tempt his wandering feet astray. --Montgomery. [Illustration: "Take it away!"] The autumnal evening was cool, dark and gusty. Storm-clouds were gathering thickly overhead, and the ground beneath was covered with rustling leaves, which, blighted by the early frosts, lay helpless and dead at the roadside, or were made the sport of the wind. A solitary horseman was slowly plodding along the road but a few miles from the village of Salem. In truth he was so near to the famous Puritan village, that, through the hills and intervening tree-tops, he could have seen the spires of the churches had he raised his melancholy eyes from the ground. The rider was not a youth, nor had he reached middle age. His face was handsome, though distorted with agony. Occasionally he pressed his hand to his side as if in pain; but maugre pain, weariness, or anguish, he pressed on, admonished by the lengthening shadows of the approach of night. Turning his great, sad, brown eyes at last to where the road wound about the valley across which the distant spires of Salem could be seen, he sighed: "Can I reach it to-night? I must!" Salem, that strange village to which the horseman was wending his way, in October, 1684, was a different village from the Salem of to-day. It is a town familiar to every American student, and, having derived its fame more from its historic recollections than from its commerce or industries, its name carries us back two centuries, suggesting the faint and transient image of the life of the Pilgrim Fathers, who gave that sacred name to the place of their chosen habitation. Whatever changes civilization or time may bring about, the features of natural scenery are, for the most part, unalterable. Massachusetts Bay is as it was when the Pilgrim Fathers first beheld it. On land, there are still the craggy hills, with jutting promontories of granite, where the barberries grow, and room is found in the narrow valleys for small farms, and for apple trees, and little slopes of grass, and patches of tillage where all else looks barren. The scenery is not more picturesque to-day, than on that chill autumnal eve, when the strange horseman was urging his jaded steed along the path which led to the village. His garments were travel-stained and his features haggard. Three hunters with guns on their shoulders were not half a mile in advance of the horseman. They, too, evidently had passed a day of arduous toil; for climbing New England hills in search of the wild deer was no easy task. They were men who had hardly reached middle age; but their grave Puritanic demeanor made them look older than they were. Their conversation was grave, gloomy and mysterious. There was little light or frivolous about them, for to them life was sombre. The hunt was not sport, but arduous toil, and their legs were so weary they could scarcely drag themselves along. "Now we may rejoice, John Bly, that home is within sight, for truly I am tired, and I think I could not go much farther," one of the pedestrians remarked to the man at his side. "Right glad will I be when we are near!" answered the fatigued John Bly. "This has been a hard day with fruitless result." "We have had some fair shots to-day," put in a third man, who walked a little behind the others. "Verily, we have; yet what profits it to us, Samuel Gray, when our guns fail to carry the ball to the place? I had as many fair shots to-day as would bring down a dozen bucks, and yet I missed every time. You know full well I am not one to miss." "You are not, John Louder." Then the three men looked mysteriously at each other. They were all believers in supernatural agencies, and the fact that such a faultless marksman should miss was enough to establish in their minds a belief that other than natural causes were at work. There could be no other reason given that John Louder should miss his mark, than that his gun was "bewitched." It was an age when the last dying throes of superstition seemed fastening on the people's minds, and the spasmodic struggle threatened to upset their reason. The New Englander's mind was prepared for mysteries as the fallow ground is prepared for the seed. He was busied conquering the rugged earth and making it yield to his husbandry. His time was divided between arduous toil for bread and fighting the Indians. He was hemmed in by a gloomy old forest, the magnitude of which he did not dream, and it was only natural, with his fertile imagination, narrow perceptions and limited knowledge, that he would see strange sights and hear strange sounds. Images and visions which have been portrayed in tales of romance and given interest to the pages of poetry were made by him to throng the woods, flit through the air and hover over the heads of terrified officials, whose learning should have placed them beyond the bounds of superstition. The ghosts of murdered wives, husbands and children played their part with a vividness of representation and artistic skill of expression hardly surpassed in scenic representation on the stage. The superstition of the Middle Ages was embodied in real action, with all its extravagant absurdities and monstrosities. This, carried into the courts of law, where the relations of society and conduct or feelings of individuals were suffered to be under control of fanciful or mystical notions, could have but one effect. When a whole people abandoned the solid ground of common sense, overleaped the boundaries of human knowledge, gave itself up to wild reveries, and let loose its passions without restraint, the result was more destructive to society than a Vesuvius to Pompeii. When John Louder said his gun was bewitched, there was no incredulous smile on his companions' faces. The political complexion of New England at that time no doubt had much to do with the superstitious awe which overspread that country. Within the recollection of many inhabitants, the parent government had changed three times. Charles II. had lived such a life of furious dissipation, that his earthly career was drawing to a close. The New England people were zealous theologians, and Massachusetts and Plymouth hated above all sects the Roman Catholics. Charles II. could not reign long, and James, Duke of York, his brother, would be his successor, as it was generally known that Charles II. had no legitimate heir. It was hoped by some that his illegitimate son, the Duke of Monmouth, a Protestant, might succeed him. Some had even hinted that Charles II., while flying from Cromwell, had secretly married Lucy Waters, the mother of the duke; but this has never been proved in history. The somewhat ostentatious manner in which the Duke of York had been accustomed to go to mass, during the life of his brother, was the chief cause of the general dislike in which he was held. Even Charles, giddy and careless as he was in general, saw the imprudence of James' conduct, and significantly told him on one occasion that _he_ had no desire to go upon his travels again, whatever James might wish. When it became currently reported all over the American colonies that this bigoted Catholic would, on the death of his brother, become their ruler, the New Englanders began to tremble for their religion. There was murmuring from every village and plantation, keeping society in a constant ferment. The three hunters were still discussing their ill luck when the sound of horse's hoofs fell on their ears, and they turned slowly about to see a stranger approaching them on horseback. His sad, gray eye had something wild and supernatural about it. His costume had at one time been elegant, but was now stained with dust and travel. It included a wrought flowing neckcloth, a sash covered with a silver-laced red cloth coat, a satin waistcoat embroidered with gold, a trooping scarf and a silver hat-band. His trousers, which were met above the knees by a pair of riding boots, like the remainder of his attire, was covered with dust. The expression of pain on his face was misconstrued by the superstitious hunters into a look of fiendish triumph, and John Louder, seizing the arm of Bly, whispered: "It is he!" "Perhaps----" "I know it, Bly, for he hath followed me all day." "Then wherefore not give him the ball, which he hath guarded from the deer?" "It would be of no avail, John. A witch cannot be killed with lead. He would throw the ball in my face and laugh at me." The three walked hastily along, casting wary and uneasy glances behind as the horseman drew nearer. Each trembled lest the horseman should speak, and once or twice he seemed as if he would; but pain, or some other cause unknown to the hunters, prevented his doing so. He rode swiftly by, disappearing over the hill in the direction of Salem. When he was out of sight the three hunters paused, and, falling on their knees, each uttered a short prayer for deliverance from Satan. As they rose, John Louder said: "Now I know full well, good men, that he is the wizard who hath tampered with my gun." "Who is he?" "Ah! well may you ask, Samuel Gray, who he is; a stranger, the black man, the devil, who hath assumed this form to mislead and torment us. One can only wonder at the various cunning of Satan," and Louder sighed. "Truly you speak, friend John," Bly answered. "The enemy of men's souls is constantly on the lookout for the unwary." "I have met him and wrestled with him, until I was almost overcome; but, having on the whole armor of God, I did cry out 'Get thee behind me, Satan!' and, behold, I could smell the sulphur of hell, as the gates were opened to admit the prince of darkness." The shades of night were creeping over the earth, and the three weary hunters were not yet within sight of their homes, when the horseman who had so strangely excited their fears drew rein at a spring not a fourth of a mile from the village of Salem and allowed his horse to drink. He pressed his hand to his side, as if suffering intolerable anguish, and murmured: "Will I find shelter there?" Overcome by suffering, he at last slipped from his saddle and, sitting among the rustling leaves heedless of the lowering clouds and threatened storm, buried his face in his hands. Two hours had certainly elapsed since he first came in sight of Salem, and yet so slow had been his pace, that he had not reached the village; but on the earth, threatened with a raging tempest, he breathed in feeble accents a prayer to God for strength to perform the great and holy task on which he was bent. He was sick and feeble. In his side was a wound that might prove fatal, and to this he occasionally pressed his hand as if in pain. He who heareth the poor when they cry unto Him, answered the prayer of the desolate. A farmer boy came along whistling merrily despite the approaching night and storm. Not the chilling blasts of October, the dread of darkness, nor the cold world could depress the spirits of Charles Stevens, the merry lad of Salem. In fact, he was so merry that, by the straight-laced Puritans, he was thought ungodly. He had a predisposition to whistling and singing, and was of "a light and frivolous carriage." He laughed at the sanctity of some people, and was known to smile even on the Lord's Day. When, in the exuberance of his spirits, his feet kept time to his whistling, the good Salemites were horrified by the ungodly dance. Charles Stevens, however, had a better heart, and was a truer Christian than many of those sanctimonious critics, who sought to restrain the joy and gladness with which God filled his soul. It was this good Samaritan who came upon the suffering stranger whom the three Puritans had condemned in their own minds as an emissary of the devil. "Why do you sit here, sir?" Charles asked, leaving off his whistle. "Night is coming on, and it is growing so chill and cold, you must keep moving, or surely you will perish." "I cannot rise," was the answer. "Cannot rise! prythee, what ails you, friend?" "I am sick, sore and wounded." "Wounded!" cried Charles, "and sick, too!" [Illustration: "Cannot rise! Prythee, what ails you, friend?"] His sharp young eyes were enabled to penetrate the deepening shades of twilight, and he saw a ghastly pallor overspreading the man's face, who, pressing his hand upon his side, gave vent to gasps of keen agony. His left side was stained with blood. "You are wounded!" Charles Stevens at last declared. "Pray, how came it about?" "I was fired upon by an unseen foe, for what cause I know not, as, being a stranger in these parts, I have had no quarrel." "Come, let me help you to rise." "No, it is useless. I am tired and too faint to go further. Let me lie here. I will soon be dead, and all this agony will be over." At this, the cheerful mind of Charles Stevens asserted itself by inspiring hope in the heart of the fainting stranger. "No, no, my friend, never give up. Don't say die, so long as you live. It is but a few rods further to the home where I live with my mother. I can help you walk so far, and there you can get rested and warmed, and mother will dress your wound." "Can I go?" the traveller asked. "Men can do wonders when they try." "Then I will try." "I will help you." The boy threw his strong arm around the man and raised him to his feet; but his limbs no longer obeyed his will, and he sank again upon the ground. "It is of no avail, my good boy. I cannot go. Leave me to die." Charles turned his eyes about to look for the stranger's horse; but it had strayed off in the darkness. To search for him would be useless, and for a moment the good Samaritan stood as if in thought; then, stripping off his coat and wrapping it around the wounded man, he said hopefully: "I will be back soon, don't move," and he hurried away swiftly toward home. On reaching the threshold, he thanked God that he was not a wanderer on such a night. The New England kitchen, with its pewter-filled dresser, reflecting and multiplying the genial blaze of the log-heaped fire-place, its high-backed, rush-bottomed chairs, grating as they were moved over the neatly sanded floor, its massive beam running midway of the ceiling across the room, and its many doors, leading to other rooms and attics, was a picture of comfort two hundred years ago. The widowed mother, with her honest, beautiful face surrounded by a neat, dark cap border, met her son as he entered the kitchen and, glancing at him proudly, said: "The wind gives you good color, Charles." "Yes, mother," rubbing his cheeks, "they do burn some;--mother." "Well?" "I heard you tell Mr. Bly, the other day, that you could trust me with all you had. Will you trust me with old Moll and the cart to-night?" "What do you want with Moll and the cart?" "To go to the big spring under the hill for a poor man who is sick and wounded." "And alone?" "Yes, mother." "It is a freezing night." "Yes, mother, and he may die. He is unable to walk. Remember the story of the good Samaritan." After a long pause, the widow said, "Yes, you may have old Moll and the cart. Bring him here, and we will care for him; but remember that to-morrow's work must be done." "If you have any fault to find to-morrow night, don't trust me again!" and the boy, turning to the cupboard beneath the dressers, buttered a generous slice of bread, then left the room with a small pitcher, and returned with it brimming full of cider, his mother closely noting all, while she busied herself making things to rights in her culinary department. Charles next went out and harnessed the mare to the cart, then returned to the kitchen for his bread and cider. "Why not eat that before you go?" queried the mother. "I am not hungry, I have had some supper, you know. Good night, mother. I will be back soon; so have the bed ready for the wounded stranger." "God bless you, my brave boy," the mother exclaimed, as he went out and sprang into the cart. She now knew that he had taken the bread and cider for the sick man, under the hill. Charles hurried old Moll to a faster gait than she was accustomed to go, and found the stranger where he had left him. Leaping from the cart, he said: "I am back, sir! You said you were faint. Here's some of our cider, and if you will sit up and drink it and eat this bread, you will feel better, and here is old Moll and the cart ready to take you home where you will receive good Christian treatment until you are well enough to go on your way rejoicing." So he went on, bobbing now here and now there and talking as fast as he could, so as not to hear the poor man's outpourings of gratitude, as he ate and drank and was refreshed. With some difficulty, he got the stranger into the cart, where, supported by the boy's strong arm, he rode in almost total silence through the increasing darkness to the home of the widow Stevens. He was taken from the cart and was soon reclining upon a bed. His wound, though painful, was not dangerous and began to heal almost immediately. Surgery was in its infancy in America, and on the frontier of the American colonies, every one was his own surgeon. The widow dressed the wound herself, and the stranger recovered rapidly. Charles next day found a horse straying in the forest with a saddle and holsters, and, knowing it to be the steed of the wounded stranger, he brought it home. As the wounded man recovered he became more silent and melancholy. He had not even spoken his name and seldom uttered a word unless addressed. One night this mysterious stranger disappeared from the widow's cottage. He might have been thought ungrateful had he not left behind five golden guineas, which, the note left behind said, were in part to remunerate the good people who had watched over and cared for him so kindly. Charles Stevens and his mother were much puzzled at this mysterious stranger, and often when alone they commented on his conduct. Their home was outside the village of Salem, and for days they did not have a visitor; but two or three of their neighbors had seen the stranger while at their house, yet they told no one about him. His mysterious disappearance was kept a secret by mother and son. Little did they dream that in after years they would suffer untold sorrow for playing the part of good Samaritans. John Louder and his friends had almost forgotten their day of hard luck in the woods. Their more recent hunts had proven successful, for the witches had temporarily left off tampering with their guns. The stranger whom they had met on that evening was quite forgotten. A fortnight after the stranger disappeared, John Louder was wandering in the forest, his gun on his shoulder. The sun had just dipped below the western hills and trees, and he was approaching a small lake at which the deer came to drink. It was a dense forest through which he was pressing his way. In places it was so dense he was compelled to part the underbrush with his hands. Centuries of summer suns had warmed the tops of the same noble oaks and pines, sending their heat even to the roots. Though the early frosts of October had stricken many a leaf from its parent stem, enough still remained to obscure the vision at a rod's distance. Night was approaching, and John Louder, brave as he was to natural danger, had a strange dread of shadows and the unreal. He pressed his way through the wood, until a spot almost clear of timber was in sight. This little area, which afforded a good view of the sky, although it was pretty well filled with dead trees, lay between two of those high hills or low mountains into which the whole surface of the adjacent country was broken. Dashing aside the bushes and brambles of the swamp, the forester burst into the area with an exclamation of delight. "One can breathe here! There is the lake to which the deer come to drink. Now, if Satan send not a witch to lead my bullets astray, perchance I may have a venison ere an hour has passed." He gathered some dry sticks of wood and, with his flint and steel, quickly kindled a fire. His fire was to keep off the mosquitoes, which were tormenting in that locality. The fire did not alarm the deer, for they had seen the woods burn so often that they would go quite close to a blaze. Hardly had he lighted his fire, when he was startled by the tramp of feet near, and a moment later a horseman rode out of the woods and drew rein before him. Louder was surprised, but by no means alarmed. A man in the forest was by no means uncommon, yet he felt a little curious to know why he was there. He reasoned that probably the fellow had lost his way, and had been attracted by his camp fire; but the stranger's question dispelled that delusion. "Are you John Louder?" he asked. "Yes." "You live at Salem?" "I do." "Are you a Protestant?" "I am." "You do not believe in the transubstantiation of the body and blood of Christ into the bread and wine of the Sacrament?" John Louder, who was a true Puritan and a hater of the Papists, quickly responded: "I do not hold to any such theology." "Nor do you believe in the infallibility of the pope?" "I believe no such doctrine." "Then there can be no doubt that you are a true Protestant." "I am," Louder answered with no small degree of pride. "So much the better." The stranger dismounted from his horse and slipped his left hand through the rein, allowing the tired beast to graze, while with his right hand he began searching in his pockets for something. "Would you have a Catholic king?" he asked while searching his pockets. "No." "You prefer a Protestant." "I do." "I knew it," and he continued, "King Charles is nearing his end. But a few months more must see the last of this monarch, and then we will have another. The great question which appeals to the heart of every Englishman to-day is, shall it be a Protestant or a Catholic?" "A Protestant!" cried John Louder, in his bigoted enthusiasm. "Then, John Louder, it behooves the English people to speak their minds at once, lest they have fastened upon them a monarch who will wrench from them their religious liberties." Louder was wondering what the man could mean when the stranger suddenly took from his pocket a book. It was a book with a red back, as could be seen from the fire-light. The stranger drew from another pocket a pen and an ink horn and, in a voice which was solemn and impressive, said: "Sign!" John Louder was astonished at the request, or command, whichever it might be, and mechanically stretched out his hand to take the book. At this moment the camp-fire suddenly flamed up, and he afterward averred that the face of the stranger was suddenly changed to that of a devil, and from his burning orbs there issued blue jets of flame, while the whole air was permeated with sulphur. With a yell of horror, he started back, crying: "Take it away! take away your book! I will not sign! I will not sign!" "Sign it, and I promise you a Protestant king." "Away! begone! The whole armor of God be between me and you." [Illustration: Seizing a firebrand, he searched for the print of a cloven hoof.] Quaking with superstitious dread, Louder sank down upon the ground and buried his face in his hands. For several minutes he remained thus trembling with fear, and when he finally recovered sufficiently to raise his eyes, the stranger was gone. He and his horse had vanished, and John Louder, seizing a firebrand, searched the ground for the print of a cloven foot. He found it and, snatching up his rifle, ran home as rapidly as he could. It was late that night when he reached his house and, rapping on the door, called: "Good-wife! Good-wife, awake and let me in!" "John Louder, wherefore came you so early, when I thought you had gone to stalk the deer and would not come before morning?" "I have seen him!" "Whom have you seen?" "The man with the book." This announcement produced great consternation in the mind of good-wife Louder. To have seen the man with the book was an evil omen, and to sign this book was the loss of one's eternal soul. "Did you sign it, John?" she asked. "No." "God be praised!" CHAPTER II. PENNSYLVANIA. I had a vision: evening sat in gold Upon the bosom of a boundless plain, Covered with beauty; garden, field and fold, Studding the billowy sweep of ripening grain, Like islands in the purple summer main, The temples of pure marble met the sun, That tinged their white shafts with a golden stain And sounds of rustic joy and labor done, Hallowed the lonely hour, until her pomp was gone. --Croly. Religious fanaticism is the most dangerous of all the errors of mankind. A false leader in religion may be more fatal than an incompetent general of an army, therefore ministers of the gospel and teachers have the greatest task imposed on them of any of God's creation. When once one's religion runs mad, barbarity assumes the support of conscience and feels its approval in the consummation of the most heinous crimes. The Pilgrims and Puritans who had fled from religious persecutions across the seas, and had come to the wilderness to worship God according to their own conscience were unwilling to grant the same privilege to others. For this reason they banished Roger Williams and persecuted other religious sects not in accordance with their own views. They whipped Quakers, bored holes in their tongues, branded them with hot irons, and even hung them for their religious views. Why need one blame Spain for the infamous inquisition, when the early churches of Protestantism did fully as bad? Religious fervor controlled by prejudice and ignorance is the greatest calamity that can befall a nation. The Quakers appeared first in England about the time Roger Williams procured his charter for Rhode Island. The term Quaker now so venerated and respected was given this sect in derision, just as the Puritans, Protestants and many other now respectable sects were named. Their founder and preachers were among the boldest and yet the meekest of the non-conformists. Their morality was so strict that by some they were denominated ascetics, and this strictness was carried into every habit and department of life. Extravagant expenditures, fashionable dress, games of chance, dancing, attending the theatres and all amusements, however harmless, were forbidden by this sect. Even music was discouraged as a seductive vanity. The members of this church were forbidden to own slaves, to take part in war, engage in lawsuits, indulge in intemperance or profanity, which, if persisted in, was a cause for the expulsion of a member from the society, and the whole body was in duty bound to keep a watch upon the actions of each other. Their practices so generally agreed with their principles, that society was compelled to admit that the profession of a Quaker or Friend, as they usually styled themselves, was a guaranty of a morality above the ordinary level of the world. The founder of this remarkable sect was George Fox, a shoemaker of Leicestershire, England, who, at the early age of nineteen, conceived the idea that he was called of God to preach the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. He attacked the coldness and spiritual deadness of all the modes and forms of religious worship around him, and soon excited a persecuting spirit which marked his ministerial life of about forty years as a pilgrimage from one prison to another. When, in 1650, he was called before Justice Bennet, of Derby, he admonished that magistrate to repent and "tremble and _quake_ before the word of the Lord," at the same time his own body was violently agitated with his intense emotions. The magistrate and other officers of the court then and there named him a "Quaker" out of derision, a term which the society have since come to use themselves. William Penn, the son of a distinguished English admiral, became an early convert to this religion. At an early age, while at college, he embraced the doctrines and adopted the mode of life of George Fox and his followers. When his father first learned that his son was in danger of becoming a Quaker, he was incredulous. The admiral was a worldly, ambitious man and had great plans in view for his son, which would all be blasted if the precocious youth adopted the new religion. The struggles of young William Penn with his ambitious father, were long and bitter. He was beaten and turned out of doors by his angry parent, then taken back by the erratic but kind-hearted father and sent to France to be lured with gayety and dazzled with promises of wealth and distinction; but William Penn had the courage of his convictions and yielded not one whit of his religious ideas. Conscious of being right, he was unmoved by either promises or threats, and he even withstood the fires of persecution. On one occasion he and another were tried on a charge of preaching in the streets. The jury, after being kept without fire, food, or water for two days and nights, brought in a verdict of "not guilty," for which they were each heavily fined by the court and committed to Newgate prison. Penn and his companion did not wholly escape, for they were fined and imprisoned for contempt of court, in wearing their hats in the presence of that body. At this time William Penn was only twenty-four years of age. [Illustration: William Penn.] A great many Friends had emigrated to America, and two had become proprietors of New Jersey. The first event that drew Penn's particular attention to America was when he was called upon to act as umpire between the two Quaker proprietors of New Jersey. Having the New World thus thrust upon his attention, the young convert to the new religion began to look with longing eyes across the Atlantic for a home for himself and his persecuted brethren. Shortly afterward, he obtained from the crown a charter for a vast territory beyond the Delaware. This charter was given in payment of a debt of eighty thousand dollars due to his father from the government. The charter was perpetual proprietorship given to him and his heirs, in the fealty of an annual payment of two beaver skins. In honor of his Welch ancestry, Penn proposed calling the domain "New Wales;" but for some reason the secretary of state objected. Penn, while endeavoring to think up an appropriate title, suggested that Sylvania would be an appropriate name for such a woody country. The secretary who drew up the charter, on the impulse of the moment, prefixed the name of Penn to Sylvania in the document. William Penn protested against the use of his name, as he had no ambition to be thus distinguished, and offered to pay the secretary if he would leave it out. This he refused to do, and Penn next appealed to the king--"the merrie King Charlie," who insisted that the province should be called Pennsylvania, in honor of his dead friend the admiral. Thus Pennsylvania received its name. The territory included in William Penn's charter extended north from New Castle in Delaware three degrees of latitude and five degrees of longitude west from the Delaware River. William Penn was empowered to ordain all laws with the consent of the freemen, subject to the approval of the king. No taxes were to be raised save by the provincial assembly, and permission was given to the clergymen of the Anglican church to reside within the province without molestation. The charter for Pennsylvania was granted on March 14, 1681, and in the following May, Penn sent William Markham, a relative, to take possession of his province and act as deputy governor. A large number of emigrants in the employ of the "company of free traders" who had purchased lands in Pennsylvania of the proprietor, went with him. These settled near the Delaware and "builded and planted." With the assistance of Algernon Sidney, a sturdy republican, who soon after perished on the scaffold for his views on personal liberty, Penn drew up a code of laws for the government of the colony, that were wise, liberal and benevolent, and next year sent them to the settlers in Pennsylvania for their approval. William Penn soon discovered that his colony was liable to suffer for the want of sea-board room. He coveted Delaware for that purpose, and resolved if possible to have it. This territory, however, was claimed by Lord Baltimore as a part of Maryland, and for some time had been a matter of dispute between him and the Duke of York. For the sake of peace, the latter offered to purchase the territory of Baltimore; but the baron would not sell it. Penn then assured the Duke that Lord Baltimore's claim was "against law, civil and common." The duke gladly assented to the opinion, and the worldly-wise Quaker obtained from his grace a quitclaim deed for the territory, now comprising the whole of the State of Delaware. As soon as William Penn had accomplished his purpose, he made immediate preparations for going to America, and within a week after the bargain was officially settled, he sailed in the ship _Welcome_, with one hundred emigrants, in August, 1682. Many of his emigrants died from small-pox on the voyage; but with the remainder he arrived, early in November, at New Castle, where he found almost a thousand emigrants. In addition to these, there were about three thousand old settlers--Swedes, Dutch, Huguenots, Germans and English--enough to form the material for the solid foundation of a State. There Penn received from the agent of the Duke of York, and in the presence of all the people, a formal surrender of all that fine domain. The Dutch had long before conquered and absorbed the Swedes on the Delaware, and the English in turn had conquered the Dutch, and it was by virtue of his charter, giving him a title to all New Netherland, that the duke claimed the territory as his own. The transfer inherited for Penn and his descendants a dispute with the proprietors of Maryland, which might seem incompatible with the views of Quakers. William Penn, in honor of the duke, attempted to change the name of Cape Henlopen to Cape James; but geography is sometimes arbitrary and refuses to change at will of rulers, and Henlopen and May preserve their original names given them by the Dutch. It was the earliest days in November when William Penn, with a few friends, set out in an open boat and journeyed up the river to the beautiful bank, fringed with pine trees, on which the city of Philadelphia was soon to rise. On this occasion was made that famous treaty with the Indians, with which every school-boy is acquainted. Beneath a huge elm at Shakamaxon, on the northern edge of Philadelphia, William Penn, surrounded by a few friends, in the habiliments of peace, met the numerous delegations of the Lenni-Lenape tribes. The great treaty was not for the purchase of lands; but, confirming what Penn had written and Markham covenanted, its sublime purpose was the recognition of the equal rights of humanity, under the shelter of the forest trees, barren of leaves from the effects of the early frosts. Penn proclaimed to the men of the Algonkin race, from both banks of the Delaware, from the borders of the Schuylkill, and, it may have been, even from the Susquehannah, the same simple message of peace and love which George Fox had professed before Cromwell, and which Mary Fisher had borne to the Grand Turk. He argued that the English and the Indian should respect the same moral law, should be alike secure in their pursuits and their possessions, and should adjust every difference by a peaceful tribunal, to be composed of an equal number of wise and discreet men from each race. Penn said: "We meet on the broad pathway of good faith and good-will. No advantage will be taken on either side; but all shall be openness and love. I will not call you children, for parents sometimes chide their children too severely, nor brothers only, for brothers differ. The friendship between me and you, I will not compare to a chain, for that rains might rust, or the falling tree might break. We are the same as if one man's body were divided into two parts. We are all one flesh and blood." The sincerity of the speaker, as well as his sacred doctrine, touched the hearts of the forest children, and they renounced their guile and their revenge. The presents which Penn offered were received in sincerity, and with hearty friendship they gave the belt of wampum. "We will live," said they, "in love with William Penn and his children, as long as the moon and the sun shall endure." Mr. Bancroft says: "This agreement of peace and friendship was made under the open sky, by the side of the Delaware, with the sun and river and the forest for witnesses. It was not confirmed by an oath; it was not ratified by signatures and seals; no record of the conference can be found, and its terms and conditions had no abiding inscription but on the heart. There they were written like the law of God. The simple sons of the wilderness, returning to their wigwams, kept the history of the covenant by strings of wampum, and, long afterward, in their cabins, would count over the shells on a clean piece of bark and recall to their own memory and repeat to their children or to the stranger the words of William Penn. New England had just terminated a disastrous war of extermination. The Dutch were scarcely ever at peace with the Algonkins. The laws of Maryland refer to Indian hostilities and massacres, which extended as far as Richmond. Penn came without arms; he declared his purpose to abstain from violence; he had no message but peace, and not a drop of Quaker blood was shed in his time by an Indian. "Was there not progress from Melendez to Roger Williams? from Cortez and Pizarro to William Penn? The Quakers, ignorant of the homage which their virtues would receive from Voltaire and Raynal, men so unlike themselves, exulted in the consciousness of their humanity. 'We have done better,' said they truly, 'than if, with the proud Spaniards, we had gained the mines of Potosi. We may make the ambitious heroes, whom the world admires, blush for their shameful victories. To the poor, dark souls around about us we teach their rights as men.'" After the treaty, Penn again journeyed through New Jersey to New York and Long Island, visiting friends and preaching with his usual fervor and earnestness. Then he returned to the Delaware, and, on the seventh day of November, he went to Uplands (now Chester), where he met the first provincial assembly of his province. There he made known his benevolent designs toward all men, civilized and savage, and excited the love and reverence of all hearers. The assembly tendered their grateful acknowledgment to him, and the Swedes authorized one of their number to say to him in their name that they "would live, serve and obey him with all they had," declaring that it was "the best day they ever saw." He informed the assembly of the union of the "territories" (as Delaware was called) with his province, and received their congratulations. Then and there was laid the foundation for the great commonwealth of Pennsylvania. One matter still remained to be adjusted, and that was some satisfactory arrangement with the third Lord Baltimore, concerning the boundary lines. This at last having been amicably adjusted, Penn went up the Delaware in an open boat to Wicaco, to attend the founding of a city, to which allusion had been made in his concessions in 1681. Before his arrival in America, Penn had thought of this city he was to found, and resolved to give it the name of Philadelphia--a Greek word signifying brotherly love--as a token of the principles in which he intended to govern his province. Near a block-house constructed by the Swedes, but which had since been converted into a church, he purchased lands extending from the high banks of the Delaware, fringed with pines, to those of the Schuylkill. There his surveyor laid out the city of Philadelphia upon a plan which would embrace about twelve square miles. The surveyor who aided William Penn in laying out Philadelphia was Thomas Holme. It was at the close of the year 1682, that the town was surveyed, and the boundaries of the streets marked on the trunks of the chestnut, walnut, locust, spruce, pine and other forest trees covering the land. Many of the streets were named for the forest monarchs on which these inscriptions were cut, and still bear the names. The growth of the town was rapid, and, within a year after the surveyor had finished this work, almost a hundred houses had been erected there, and the Indians daily came with the fruits of the chase as presents for "Father Penn," as they delighted to call the proprietor. In the following March, the new city was honored by the gathering there of the second assembly of the province, when Penn offered to the people, through their representatives a new charter. The new charter was so liberal in all its provisions, that when he asked the question: "Shall we accept the new constitution or adhere to the old one?" they voted in a body to accept the new charter, and became at once a representative republican government, with free religious toleration, with justice, for its foundation, and the proprietor, unlike those of other provinces, surrendered to the people his chartered rights in the appointment of officers. From the beginning, the happiness and prosperity of his people appeared to be uppermost in the heart and mind of William Penn. It was this happy relation between the proprietor and the people, and the security against Indian raids, that made Pennsylvania far outstrip her sister colonies in rapidity of settlement and permanent prosperity. It was late in 1682 that a small house was erected on the site of Philadelphia for the use of Penn, and only a few years ago it was still standing between Front and Second Streets, occupied by Letitia Court. There he assisted in fashioning those excellent laws which gave a high character to Pennsylvania from the beginning. Among other wise provisions was a board of arbitrators called peace-makers, who were to adjust all difficulties and thus prevent lawsuits. The children were all taught some useful trade. When factors wronged their employees, they were to make satisfaction and one-third over. All causes for irreligion and vulgarity were to be suppressed, and no man was to be molested for his religious opinions. It was also decreed that the days of the week and the months of the year "shall be called as in Scripture, and not by heathen names (as are vulgarly used), as ye First, Second and Third months of ye year, beginning with ye day called Sunday, and ye month called March," thus beginning the year, as of old, with the first spring month. Pennsylvania was first divided into three counties--Bucks, Chester and Philadelphia, and the annexed territories were also divided into three counties--New Castle, Kent and Sussex--known for a long time afterward as the "Three Lower Counties on the Delaware." Penn returned to England in the summer of 1684, leaving the government of the province during his absence to five members of the council, of which Thomas Lloyd, the president, held the great seal. William Penn's mission in America had been one of success. In 1685, Philadelphia contained six hundred houses; schools were established, and William Bradford had set up a printing press. He printed his "Almanac for the year of the Christian's Account, 1687," a broadside, or single sheet, with twelve compartments, the year beginning with March. William Penn could look with no little degree of pride upon his work. If ever man was justified in being proud, he was. Looking upon the result of his work, he, with righteous exultation, wrote to Lord Halifax, "I must, without vanity, say I have led the greatest colony into America that ever man did upon private credit, and the most prosperous beginnings that ever were in it are to be found among us." Penn bade the colonists farewell, with the brightest hopes for the future, saying, "My love and my life are to and with you, and no water can quench it, nor distance bring it to an end. I have been with you, cared for you, and served you with unfeigned love, and you are beloved of me and dear to me beyond utterance. I bless you in the name and power of the Lord, and may God bless you with his righteousness, peace and plenty all the land over." Then of Philadelphia, the apple of the noble Quaker's eye, he said, "And thou, Philadelphia, the virgin settlement of this province, my soul prays to God for thee, that thou mayest stand in the day of trial, and that thy children may be blessed." He stood on the deck of the ship which was anchored at the foot of Chestnut Street, when he delivered his farewell address, and on that bright August day, when the good ship spread her sails and sped away across the seas, he bore away with him to England the blessings of the whole people. Four months after Penn's return to England, Charles the Second died, and his brother James ascended the throne. A period of theological and political excitement in England followed, in which William Penn became involved. William Penn and the new king had long been personal friends, and through the influence of the honest Quaker, twelve hundred persecuted Friends were released from prison, in 1686. As James was under the influence of the Jesuits, his Quaker friend was suspected of being one of them, and when the revolution that drove James from the throne came, Penn was three times arrested on false charges of treason and as often acquitted, his last acquittal being in 1690. There had meanwhile been great political and theological commotions in Pennsylvania, and in April, 1691, the three lower counties on the Delaware, offended at the action of the council at Philadelphia, withdrew from the union, and Penn yielded to the secessionists so far as to appoint a separate deputy governor over them. In consequence of representations which came from Pennsylvania, the monarchs William and Mary deprived Penn of his rights as governor of his province, in 1692, and the control of the domain was placed in the hands of Governor Fletcher of New York, who, in the spring of 1693, reunited the Delaware counties to the parent province. Fletcher appeared at the head of the council at Philadelphia on Monday, the 15th of May, with William Markham, Penn's deputy, as lieutenant governor. The noble Quaker, however, had powerful friends who interceded with King William for the restoration of Penn's rights. He was called before the Privy Council to answer certain accusations, when his innocence was proven, and a few months later, all his ancient rights were restored. Penn's fortune had been wasted, and he lingered in England, under the heavy hand of poverty, until 1699, when, with his daughter and second wife, Hannah Callowhill, he sailed to Philadelphia. Meanwhile, his colony, under his old deputy, William Markham, had asserted their right to self-government and made laws for themselves. They were prosperous, but clamorous for political privileges guaranteed to them by law. Regarding their demands as reasonable, Penn, in November, 1701, gave them a new form of government, with more liberal concessions than had been formerly given. The people of the territories or three lower counties were still restive under the forced union with Pennsylvania, and Penn made provisions for their permanent separation in legislation, in 1702, and the first independent legislature in Delaware was assembled at New Castle in 1703. Although Philadelphia and Delaware ever afterward continued to have separate legislatures, they were under the same government until the Revolution in 1776. Shortly after Penn's arrival in America, he received tidings that measures were pending before the privy council, for bringing all of the proprietary governments under the crown. Penn located in Philadelphia, declaring it his intention to live and die there. He erected an excellent brick house on the corner of Second Street and Norris Alley. Disparaging news from his native land determined him to return to England, which he did in 1701, where he succeeded in setting matters to rights. He never returned to America. Harassed and wearied by business connected with his province, he was making arrangements in 1712 to sell it for sixty thousand dollars, when he was prostrated with paralysis. He survived the first shock six years, though he never fully recovered, then he died, leaving his estates in America to his three sons. His family governed Pennsylvania, as proprietors, until the Revolution made it an independent State, in 1776. During that time the great province of Pennsylvania had borne its share of troubles with the French and Indians. CHAPTER III. THE INDENTED SLAVE. Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate, All but the page prescribed, their present state: From brutes what men, from men what spirits know; Or who could suffer being here below? The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day, Had he thy reason, would he skip and play? Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food, And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood. --Pope. That which was most dreaded in New England and all the American colonies came to pass. Charles II. died, and his brother James, Duke of York, was crowned King of England. On ascending the throne, the very first act of James II. was one of honest but imprudent bigotry. Incapable of reading the signs of the times, or fully prepared to dare the worst that those signs could portend, James immediately sent his agent Caryl to Rome, to apologize to the pope for the long and flagrant heresy of England, and to endeavor to procure the re-admission of the English people into the communion of the Catholic Church. The pope was more politic than the king and returned him a very cool answer, implying that before he ventured upon so arduous an enterprise as that of changing the professed faith of nearly his entire people, he would do well to sit down and calculate the cost. The foolish king, who stopped at nothing, not even the mild rebuke of the holy father, would not open his eyes, and as a natural result he was soon cordially hated by nearly all his subjects. His brother had left an illegitimate son called the Duke of Monmouth, who was encouraged to attempt to seize the throne of his uncle. At first the cause of the duke seemed prosperous. His army swelled from hundreds to thousands; but, owing to his lack of energy and fondness for pleasure, he delayed and gave the royal armies time to recruit. He was attacked at Sedgemore, near Bridgewater, and, owing to the perfidity or cowardice of Gray, his cavalry general, the rebels were defeated. Monmouth was captured, and his uncle ordered him beheaded, which was done. Then commenced the most barbarous punishment of rebels ever known. An officer named Kirk was sent by the king to hunt down the Monmouth rebels, or those sympathizing with them. His atrocious deeds would fill a volume, and are so revolting as to seem incredible. Another brutal ruffian of the time was Judge Jeffries. The judicial ermine has often been disgraced by prejudiced judges; but Jeffries was the worst monster that ever sat on the bench. He hung men with as much relish as did Berkeley of Virginia. His term was called the "bloody assizes," and to this day the name of Judge Jeffries is applied in reproach to the scandalous ruling of a partial judiciary. The accession of James II. made fewer changes in the American colonies than was anticipated. Perhaps, had his reign been longer, the changes would have been greater. The suppression of Monmouth's rebellion gave to the colonies many useful citizens. Men connect themselves, in the eyes of posterity, with the objects in which they take delight. James II. was inexorable toward his brother's favorites. Monmouth was beheaded, and the triumph of legitimacy was commemorated by a medal, representing the heads of Monmouth and Argyle on an altar, their bleeding bodies beneath, with the following: "Sic aras et sceptra tuemur." ("Thus we defend our altars and our throne.") "Lord chief justice is making his campaign in the west," wrote James II. to one in Europe, referring to Jeffries' circuit for punishing the insurgents. "He has already condemned several hundreds, some of whom we are already executed, more are to be, and the others sent to the plantations." The prisoners condemned to transportation were a salable commodity. Such was the demand for labor in America that convicts and laborers were regularly purchased and shipped to the colonies where they were sold as indented servants. The courtiers round James II. exulted in the rich harvest which the rebellion promised, and begged of the monarch frequent gifts of their condemned countrymen. Jeffries heard of the scramble, and indignantly addressed the king: "I beseech your majesty, that I inform you, that each prisoner will be worth ten pound, if not fifteen pound, apiece, and, sir, if your majesty orders these as you have already designed, persons that have not suffered in the service will run away with the booty." Under this appeal of the lord chief justice the spoils were divided and his honor was in part gratified. Many of the convicts were persons of family and education, and were accustomed to ease and elegance. "Take all care," wrote the monarch, under the countersign of Sunderland, to the government in Virginia, "take all care that they continue to serve for ten years at least, and that they be not permitted in any manner to redeem themselves by money or otherwise, until that term be fully expired. Prepare a bill for the assembly of our colony, with such clauses as shall be requisite for this purpose." No legislature in any of the American colonies seconded such malice, for the colonies were never in full accord with James II. Tyranny and injustice peopled America with men nurtured to suffering and adversity. The history of our colonization is the history of the crimes of Europe, and some of the best families in America are descended from the indented servants of the Old World. In Bristol, kidnapping had become common, and not only felons, but young persons of birth and education were hurried across the Atlantic and sold for money. Never did a king prove a greater tyrant or more inhuman and cruel than James II. After the insurrection of Monmouth had been suppressed, all the sanguinary excesses of despotic revenge were revived. Gibbets were erected in villages to intimidate the people, and soldiers were intrusted with the execution of the laws. Scarce a Presbyterian family in Scotland, but was involved in proscription or penalties. The jails were overflowed, and their tenants were sent as slaves to the colonies. Maddened by the succession of murders; driven from their homes to caves, from caves to morasses and mountains; death brought to the inmates of a house that should shelter them; death to the benefactor that should throw them food; death to the friend that listened to their complaint; death to the wife or parent that still dared to solace husband or son; ferreted out by spies; hunted with dogs;--the fanatics turned upon their pursuers, and threatened to retaliate on the men who should still continue to imbrue their hands in blood. The council retorted by ordering a massacre. He that would not take the oath should be executed, though unarmed, and the recusants were shot on the roads, or as they labored in the field, or stood at prayer. To fly was admission of guilt; to excite suspicion was sentence of death; to own the covenant was treason. Sometimes the lot of an indented slave was a happy one. Hundreds and thousands of fugitives flying from persecution came to the New World, while thousands of others were sent as convicts. Virginia received her share of the latter. One bright spring morning a ship from England entered the James River with a number of these indented slaves to be sold to the planters. Notice had been given of the intended sale and many planters came to look at the poor wretches huddled together like so many beasts in an old shed, and guarded by soldiers. Mr. Thomas Hull, a planter of considerable means, and a man noted for his iron will, was among those who came to make purchases. "Well, Thomas, have you looked over the lot?" asked another planter. "No, Bradley, have you?" "Yes, though I am shortened in money, and unable to purchase to-day." "Well, Bradley, what have you seen among them?" "There are many fine, lusty fellows; but I was most interested and grieved in one." "Why?" "He is a man who has known refinement and ease, is perchance thirty-five and has with him a child." "A child?" "Yes, a maid not to exceed ten years, but very beautiful with her golden hair and soft blue eyes." "Is the child a slave?" "No." "Then wherefore is it here?" asked Hull. "His is truly a pathetic story as I have heard it. It seems he was a widower with his child wandering about the country, when he fell in with some of the Duke of Monmouth's people and enlisted. He was captured at Sedgemore, and condemned by Jeffries. The child was left to wander at will; but by some means she accompanied her father, managed to smuggle herself on shipboard, and was not discovered until the vessel was well out to sea. Then the captain, who was a humane man, permitted them to remain together to the end of the voyage. She is with her father now, and a prettier little maid I never saw." "By the mass! I will go and see her," cried Hull. "If she be all you say, I will buy them both." "But she is not for sale." "Wherefore not?" "She was not adjudged by the court." With the cold, heartless laugh of a natural tyrant, Hull answered: "It will be all the same. He who purchases the father will have the maid also." He went to the place where the slaves were confined and gazed on the lot, very much as a cattle dealer might look upon a herd he contemplated purchasing. His gaze soon fastened on a fine, manly person in whose proud eye the sullen fires were but half subdued. He stood with his arms folded across his broad chest and his eye fixed upon a beautiful girl at his side. The captive spoke not. A pair of handcuffs were on his wrists, and the chains came almost to the ground; but slavery and chains could not subdue the proud captive. Hull delighted in punishing those whom he disliked. He was a papist at heart and consequently in sympathy with James II., so for this indented slave he incurred from the very first a most bitter dislike. When the slave was brought forth to be sold, he bid twelve pounds for him. This was two pounds more than the required price, and he became the purchaser. "You are mine," cried Hull to the servant. "Come with me." The father turned his great brown eyes dim with moisture upon his child, and Hull, interpreting the look, added, "Hold, I will buy the maid also." "She cannot be sold," the officer in charge of the slaves answered, "unless the master of the ship sees fit to sell her for passage money." The master of the ship was present and declared he would do nothing of the kind. "I will take her back to England, if she wishes to return," he added. The child was speechless, her great blue eyes fixed on her father. "What will you do with the maid?" asked Hull, who, having the father, felt sure the child would follow. "I will return her to England free of charge, if she wills it." "Who will care for her there?" asked Hull. "Do you know her relatives?" "No; all are strangers to me." The father, with his proud breast heaving with tumultuous emotion, stood silently gazing on the scene. He was a slave and he remembered that a slave must not speak unless permission be granted him by his master; but it was his child, the only link that bound him to earth, whose fate they were to decide, and, had he been unfettered, he might have clasped her to his bosom. "Speak with the maid," suggested a by-stander, "and see if she has a friend in England who will care for her." The master of the ship went to the bewildered child and, taking her little hand in his broad palm, said: "Sweet little maid, you are not afraid to trust me?" She turned her great blue eyes up to him and, in a whisper, answered: "I am not." "Have you a mother?" "No." "Have you any friends in England?" "None, since my father came away." "Where did you live before your father enlisted in the army of Monmouth?" "We travelled; we lived at no one place." "Have you no friends or relatives in England?" "None." The captain then asked permission to talk with the father. The permission was given by Hull, for he saw that his slave had the sympathy of all present, and it would not be safe to refuse him some privileges. The master of the vessel and the magistrate who had superintended the selling of the slaves for the crown found the slave a very intelligent gentleman. He said he had but one relative living so far as he knew. He had a brother who had come to America two or three years before; but he had not heard from him, and he might be dead. "Do you know any one in England to whom your child could be sent?" "I do not." "What were you doing before you entered the duke's army?" "I was a strolling player," the man answered, his fine tragic eyes fixed firmly on the officers. "My company had reached a town one day, in which we were to play at night, and just as I was getting ready to go to the theatre, the Duke of Monmouth entered. He was on his way to Sedgemore, and I was forced to join him. My child followed on foot and watched the battle as it raged. When it was over I could have escaped, had I not come upon Cora, who was seeking me. I took her up in my arms and was hurrying away, when the cavalry of the enemy overtook me and I was made a prisoner." The simple story made an impression on all who heard it save the obdurate master. The magistrate asked the slave what he would have done with his child. "Let her stay in the colony until my term of service is ended, then I will labor to remunerate any who would keep her." At this Hull said he would take the maid, and she might always be near the father. All who knew Hull looked with suspicion on the proposition. A new-comer had arrived on the scene. This was a young man of about the same age as the prisoner. He was a wealthy Virginian named Robert Stevens, noted for his kindness of heart and charity. He did not arrive on the scene until after the indented slave had been sold; but he soon heard the story of the captive from Sedgemore and his child. Robert Stevens' heart at once went out to these unfortunates, and he resolved on a scheme to make the father practically free. "Has the slave been sold?" he asked. "He has, and I am the purchaser," answered Hull. "How much did you give for him?" "Twelve pounds." "I will give fifty." "He is already sold," repeated Hull exultingly. He despised Robert Stevens for his wealth and popularity. To have purchased a slave whom Robert Stevens wanted, was great glory for Hull. "Fear not, good man," said Robert to the unfortunate slave. "I have money enough to purchase your freedom." Unfortunately those words fell on the ears of Thomas Hull, and he answered: "It is the order of the king that all serve their term out, and none be allowed to purchase their freedom." "I will give you one hundred pounds for the slave," cried Robert. "No." "A thousand!" "Robert Stevens, for some reason you want this slave restored to liberty." "No. Sell him to me, and he shall serve out his term." "I understand your plan. You would make his servitude a luxury. You cannot have the slave for a hundred times the sum you offer. By law, the convict is fairly mine until he hath fully served his term. I am not so heartless as you deem me. His child can go to my house, where she will be cared for." "No, no, no!" cried the captive, his eyes turned appealingly to Robert Stevens. "You take her; you take her. Go with him, Cora." The child sprang to the side of Robert Stevens, for already she had come to dread the man who was her father's master. Hull's face was black with rage. He bit his lips, but said nothing. With his slave, he hurried home. The name of the slave was George Waters, and he was soon to learn the weight of a master's hand. Thomas Hull was the owner of negro slaves, as well as white indented servants, and he made no distinction between them. George Waters, proud, noble as he was, was set to work with the filthy negroes in the tobacco fields. The half-savage barbarians, with their ignorance and naturally low instincts, were intended to humiliate the refined gentleman. "You is one of us," said a negro. "What am your name?" "George Waters." "George--George, dat am my name, too," said the negro, leaning on his hoe. "D'ye suppose we is brudders?" "No." "Well, why is we bofe called George?" "I don't know." The overseer came along at this moment and threatened them with the lash, if they did not cease talking and attend to their work. Again and again was the proud George Waters subjected to indignities, until he could scarcely restrain himself from knocking Martin, his overseer, down, and selling his life in the defence of his liberty; but he remembered Cora, and resolved to bear taunts and indignities for her sake, until his term of service was ended. His only comfort was that his child was well cared for. He had been a year and a half on the upper plantation of Thomas Hull, and though he had demeaned himself well, and had done the labor of two ordinary men--though he had never uttered a word of complaint, no matter what burdens were laid upon him, his natural pride and nobility of character won the hatred of the overseer. The fellow had a violent temper and hated George Waters. One day, from no provocation at all, he threatened to beat Waters. The servant snatched the whip from his hand and said: "I would do you no harm, sir. I have always performed my tasks to the best of my ability, and never have I complained; but if you so much as give me one stroke, I will kill you." There was fire in his eye and an earnestness in his voice, which awed the cowardly overseer; but at the same time they increased his hatred. He resolved to be revenged, and reported to Hull that the slave was rebellious. Hull permitted George Waters to be tied to a tree by four stout negroes, whose barbarous natures delighted in such work, and the overseer laid a whip a dozen times about his bare shoulders. No groan escaped his lips. For three days he lay about his miserable lodge waiting for his wounds to heal, and meanwhile made up his mind to fly from the colony. He had heard that a society of Friends, or Quakers, had formed a colony to the north, which was called Pennsylvania; and he knew that they would succor a slave. As soon as he was well enough, he stole from a cabin a gun, a knife and some ammunition, and set out in the night to find the plantation of Robert Stevens, where Cora was. His escape was discovered and the overseer, with Thomas Hull, set out in hot pursuit of the fugitive. At dawn of day they came in sight of him in the forest on the Lower James River and, being on horseback, gave chase. "Keep away! keep back!" cried the fugitive, "or I will not answer for the consequences," and he brandished his gun in the air. The overseer was armed with pistols and, drawing one, galloped up to within a hundred paces of the fugitive and fired, but missed. Quick as thought, George Waters raised his gun and, taking aim at the breast of his would-be slayer, shot him dead from the saddle. The body fell to the ground, and the frightened horse wheeled about and ran away. Thomas Hull, who was a coward, awed by the fate of his overseer, turned and fled as rapidly as his horse could go. Horrified at what he had done, and knowing that death, sure and swift, would follow his capture, George Waters turned and fled down the James River. Some guardian angel guided his footsteps, for he found himself one night, almost starved, faint and weak, at the plantation of Robert Stevens. George was driven to desperate straits when he accosted the wealthy planter and asked for food. Robert recognized him as the father of the little maid whom he had taken to his home as one of his family. "I have heard all; you must not be seen," said Robert. Then he conducted him to an apartment of his large manor house. "Are you hungry?" "I am starving." Robert brought him food with his own hands and, as he ate, asked: "Do you want to see Cora?" "May I?" "Yes." "I am a slave and a--a----" "I know what you would say. Do not say it, for you slew only in self-defence." "But I will be hanged if found." "You shall not be found. Heaven help me, if I shield a real criminal from justice; but he who strikes a blow for liberty is worthy of aid." After the fugitive had in a measure satisfied his hunger, Robert said: "You will need sleep and rest, after which you must prepare for a long journey." "Whither shall I go?" "To Massachusetts. I have relatives in Salem, where you will be safe." "Safe!" He repeated the word as if it were a glorious dream--a vision never to be realized. "Yes, you will be safe; but as you must make the journey through a vast forest, you will need to be refreshed by rest and food." The wild-eyed fugitive, with his face haggard as death, seized the arm of his benefactor and said: "They will come and slay me as I sleep." "Fear not, my unfortunate brother, for I will put you in a chamber where none save myself shall know of you." "And my child?" "She shall accompany you to Salem." The fugitive said no more. He entrusted everything to the man who had promised to save him. He was led up two flights of stairs, when they came to a ladder reaching to an attic, and they went up this attic ladder to a chamber, where there was a narrow bed, with soft, clean sheets and pillows, the first the prisoner had seen in the New World. "You can sleep here in perfect security," said Robert. "I will see that you are not molested by any one." The wayworn traveller threw himself on the bed and fell asleep. Stevens went below and told his wife of the fugitive. Ester Stevens was the daughter of General Goffe, the regicide, who had been hunted for years by Charles II. for signing the death warrant of the king's father and serving in the army of Oliver Cromwell, and Mrs. Stevens could sympathize with a political fugitive. They ran some risk in keeping him in their house; but as a majority of the colonists had been in sympathy with the Duke of Monmouth, for James II. had few friends in Virginia and Thomas Hull none, their risk was not as great as it might seem. The fugitive late next day awoke, and Robert carried his breakfast to him. The colony was wild with excitement over the escape of an indented slave and the killing of the overseer. Thomas Hull represented the crime to be as heinous as possible, to arouse a sympathy for himself and a hatred for the escaped slave. Some people were outspoken in the belief that the escaped slave should be killed; others were in sympathy with him. They reasoned that Hull had been a hard master, and that this poor fellow was no criminal, but a patriot, for which he had been adjudged to ten years' penal servitude. Many of the searchers came to the mansion house of Stevens; but he managed to put them off the track. For five days and nights George Waters remained in the attic. On the sixth night Robert Stevens came to him and said: "You must now set out on your journey." "But Cora--can I see her?" "She will accompany you. Here is a suit of clothes more befitting one of your rank and station, than the garb of an indented slave." He placed a riding suit with top boots and hat in the apartment. When he had attired himself, Robert next brought him some arms, a splendid gun and a brace of pistols of the best make. "You may have need of these," said the planter. "You will also find holsters in the saddle." "And does Cora know of this?" "I have told her all." The father shuddered. In the pride of his soul, he remembered that he was a slave, had felt the lash, and was humiliated. Under a wide-spreading chestnut near the planter's mansion, stood three horses ready saddled. A faithful negro slave was holding them, and the little maid, clothed for a long journey, awaited her father's arrival. A fourth horse was near on which were a pack of provisions and a small camping outfit. The father and child met and embraced in silence, and, had she not felt a tear on her face, she would hardly have known that he was so greatly agitated. "We will mount and be far on the journey before the day dawns," said Robert. "Do you go with us?" asked George Waters. "Certainly. I know the country and will guide you beyond danger." They mounted and travelled all night long. At early dawn, they halted only to refresh themselves with a cold breakfast, and pushed on. Three days Robert journeyed with them, and then, on the border of Maryland, he halted and told them of a land now within their reach, where the Quakers dwelt. There they might rest until they were able to go to Massachusetts. He gave a purse of gold to the father, saying: "Take it, and may God be as good to you as he has been to me." The fugitive murmured out some words of thanks; but his benefactor wheeled his steed about and galloped away, lest the words of gratitude might fall on his ears. "Let us go on, father," said Cora. For days, Cora Waters could never tell how long, they journeyed, until at last, on the banks of the Delaware, they came upon a small town where dwelt a people at peace with all the world--the Quakers, and the tired child and her father were taken in, given food and shelter, Christian sympathy, and assured of safety. CHAPTER IV. MR. PARRIS AND FLOCK. And false the light on glory's plume, As fading hues of even, And Love and Hope, and Beauty's bloom, Are blossoms gathered for the tomb,-- There's nothing bright but Heaven. --Moore. The last expiring throe of a mighty superstition was about to convulse the little society at Salem, and, as usual in such cases, ignorance and prejudice went hand in hand for the destruction of reason and humanity. The last of the great religious persecutions was to begin, when eminent divines were to stand and point with pride to the swaying bodies of their victims, hanging from the gibbet, and call them "fire-brands of hell." In the village of Salem, there was a strife between Samuel Parris the minister and a part of his people; a strife so bitter, that it had even attracted the attention of a general court. We all know, even in these modern days, what a furor can be created in a church, when a part of the organization is arrayed against the pastor. Sometimes the divine shepherd loses his temper and says ugly things against his flock, and thinks many which he does not utter. Parris was a man filled with ambition and prejudice. He was a fanatic and easily driven to frenzy by opposition. An unfavorable criticism upset his highly nervous organism, and he set out to find some proof in the Scriptures for condemning his enemies. It never entered into his mind to love those who hated him. Mr. Parris had lived in the West Indies for several years before going to Salem, and had brought with him some slaves purchased from the Spaniards. Among them were two famous in history as John and Tituba his wife. Historians disagree as to the nationality of these slaves. Some aver they were Indians, others call them negroes, while some state they were half and half. Whatever may have been their nationality, their practices were the fetichism of western Africa, and there can be no doubt that negro blood predominated in their veins. All their training, their low cunning and beastly worship, their deception and treachery were utterly unlike the characteristics of the early aborigines of America, and were purely African. John and Tituba were full of the gross superstitions of their people, and were of the frame and temperament best adapted to the practice of demonology. In the family of Samuel Parris, his daughter, a child of nine years, and his niece, a girl of less than twelve, began to have strange caprices. During such a state of affairs the pastor actually permitted to be formed, with his own knowledge, a society of young girls between the ages of eight and eighteen to meet at the parsonage, strangely resembling those "circles" of our own time called séances, for spiritualistic revelations. There can be no doubt that the young girls were laboring under a strong nervous and mental excitement, which was encouraged rather than repressed by the means employed by their spiritual director. Instead of treating them as subjects of morbid delusion, Mr. Parris regarded them as victims of external and diabolical influence, and strangely enough this influence, on the evidence of the children themselves, was supposed to be exercised by some of the most pious and respectable people of the community. As it was those who opposed Mr. Parris, who fell under the ban of suspicion, there is room to suspect the reverent Mr. Parris with making a strong effort to gratify his revenge. Many a child has had its early life blighted and its nerves shattered by a ghost-believing and ghost-story-telling nurse. No class of people is more superstitious in regard to ghosts and witches than negroes. Whatever fetich ideas may have been among the Indians of the New World, many more were imbibed from the Africans with whom they early came in contact. Old Tituba was a horrid-looking creature. If ever there was a witch on earth, she was one, and as she crouched in one corner, smoking her clay pipe, her eyes closed, telling her weird stories to the girls, no one can wonder that they were strangely affected. "Now, chillun, lem me tell ye, dat ef ebber a witch catches ye, and pinches ye, and sticks pins in ye, ye won't see 'em, ye won't see nobody, ye won't see nuffin," said old Tituba. "What should we do if a witch were to catch us, Tituba?" asked Abigail Williams, the niece of Mr. Parris. "Dar but one thing to do, chile. Dat am to burn de witch or hang 'em." "Are there witches now?" "Yes, dar be plenty. I see 'em ob night. Doan ye nebber see a black man in de night?" The children were all silent, until one little girl, whose imagination was very vivid, thought she had seen a black man, once. "When was it?" asked Abigail Williams. "One night, when I waked out of my sleep, I saw a great black something by my side." The little blue eyes opened so wide and looked with such earnestness on the assembled children, that there could be no doubting her sincerity. "Can we catch witches?" Abigail asked Tituba. "Yes." "How?" "Many ways." Then she proceeded to tell of the various charms by which a witch might be detected, such as drawing the picture of the person accused and stabbing it with a knife of silver, or shooting it with a silver bullet. "Once, when a witch was in a churn," continued Tituba, "and no butter would come, den de man, he take some hot water an' pour it in de churn, an' jist den dar come a loud noise like er gun, an' dey see er cloud erbove de churn. Bye um bye, dat cloud turned ter er woman's head an' et war an ole woman wat lib in der neighborhood and war called a witch." "Is that true, Tituba?" asked one of the little girls. "It am so, fur er sartin sure fact, chile." Nothing is more susceptible than a young imagination. It can see whatever it wills, hear whatever is desired, and like wax is ready to receive any impression one chooses to put on it. A child can be made to believe it sees the most unnatural things, and in a few days Tituba and John had thoroughly convinced the children that they saw spirits and witches in the air all about them. One evening, a pretty young woman, not over twenty-one or two, came to the parsonage, where the witches and ghosts had been holding high revel. She was a brunette with a dark keen eye and hair of jet. Her face was lovely, save when distorted by passion, and her form was faultless. "Sarah Williams, where have you been, that we have seen nothing of you for a fortnight?" asked Mrs. Parris as the visitor entered the house. "I have been to Boston, and but just came back yesterday. What strange things have been transpiring since I left?" At this moment a door opened and Mr. Parris, a tall, pale man, entered from his study. The new-comer, without waiting for the pastor's wife to answer her question, rose and, grasping the hand of her spiritual adviser, cried: "Mr. Parris, how pale you are! but then I cannot wonder at it, when I consider all I have heard." "What have you heard, Sarah?" he asked. "I have heard you are having trouble in your congregation." "Who told you?" "The rumor has gone all over the country, even reaching Boston. And they do say that the evil spirits have visited Salem to defame you." Mr. Parris pressed his thin lips so firmly that the blood seemed to have utterly forsaken them, and his cold gray eye was kindled with a subdued fire, as he answered: "I am far from insensible that at this extraordinary time of the devil coming down in great wrath upon us, there are too many tongues and hearts thereby set on fire of hell." "To whom can you trace your troubles?" "To Goodwife Nurse," answered the pastor. "It is that firebrand of hell who seeks to ruin me." "I saw Goody Nurse," cried one of the smaller children. "When?" asked Mr. Parris. "Last night." The pastor, the visitor, and the wife exchanged significant glances, and the father asked: "Where did you see her?" "She came with the black man to my bed." "What did she do?" "She asked me to sign the book." "What book?" "I don't know; but it was a red book." The anxious mother, in a fit of hysterics, seized her child in her arms and cried: "No, no, no! don't you sign the book and sell your immortal soul, child!" and she gave way to a fit of weeping, which unnerved all the children, who began to howl, as if they were beset by demons. When the hubbub was at its height, the door to an adjoining room opened, and Tituba and John stuck their heads into the room. "She am dar! she am dar!" cried old Tituba. "I see her! I see dem bofe!" "Yes, I see um--see um bofe, Tituba," repeated John. "Who do you see?" asked the pastor. "See de black man and Goody Nurse." "Where?" "Dar." They pointed along the floor, then up the wall to the ceiling, where they both avowed that they saw Goodwife Nurse and the black man, or demon, dancing with their heels up and heads down. The negro clapped his hands, patted his foot on the floor and cried aloud: "Doan yer see um, Marster? doan yer see um, chillun?" One little girl, who fixed her eyes on a certain dark corner of the room, thought she could see a shadow moving on the wall, but was not quite certain. The pastor was overcome by the presence of the prince of darkness in his own house, and, falling on his knees, began to pray. As a natural result, when all minds were directed to one channel, as they were by prayer, the superstitious feeling which possessed them passed away, and the household, which a few moments ago was on the verge of hysteria, became more calm, and when all rose from their knees, Mrs. Parris asked her visitor to spend the evening with them. "I fain would stay; but I dread the long walk home." "Samuel will accompany you, unless Charles Stevens comes, as he promised. In case he should, he can go with you." At the mention of Charles Stevens, the young woman's eyes grew brighter, and her face became crimson. "Sarah, have you not heard from your husband?" asked the minister. "No; he is dead." "Did you never hear of the pinnace?" "No; but it was no doubt lost." "How long since he left?" "A year. He went to New York, was seen to leave that port, and has never been heard from." "It is sad." "Verily, it is," and Sarah tried hard to call up a tear, and wiped her eyes with the corner of her apron. John and Tituba had retired to their domain, the kitchen, to conjure up more demons and plan further mischief. Mr. Parris could not keep his mind long from the rebellious members of his flock. "I will be avenged on them," he thought. "Verily, I will be avenged for every pang they have made me suffer." He had forgotten the command, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord." Sarah Williams proceeded to further delve into the trouble with Mr. Parris and his church. "Is Rebecca Nurse your enemy?" she asked. "Verily, she is; so is her sister Goodwife Corey." "Why are they your enemies?" "They want another pastor, and have done all in their power to ruin me." "Why do you endure it?" asked Sarah. "How can I help myself? I retain my charge and shall retain it, despite Goody Nurse." At this the youngest child said: "Goody Nurse was at church last Lord's day with a yellow bird." "A yellow bird?" cried all. "Yes; I saw a yellow bird fly into the church and light on her shoulder." Tituba had told the poor deluded child that if Goodwife Nurse were a witch, she would be accompanied by a yellow bird. "Surely you saw no yellow bird last Lord's day." "Verily, I did, and it came first and sat on her shoulder, and then on her knee, and, while father was preaching, it whispered in her ear." "Could you hear what it said?" asked the pastor. "No, for I was not near enough." Then the pastor and his wife and visitor exchanged glances. Foolishly credulous and blindly superstitious, as well as prejudiced, their minds were like the fallow ground ready to receive any impression, however silly. Before more could be said, there came a rap at the door, and Charles Stevens, the lad who succored the wounded stranger that had so mysteriously disappeared, entered. Charles was almost a man, and bid fair to make a fine-looking fellow. He was tall and muscular, with bold gray eyes and a face open and manly. He had lost none of his mirth, and his merry whistle still shocked some of the staid old Puritans. As soon as Charles entered, the young widow rose, all blushing, to greet him. She was not more than one or two years his senior, and, being still beautiful, there was a possibility of her entrapping the youth. The pastor greeted him warmly and assured him that his visit was most opportune; but he regretted very much that he had not come an hour sooner. "Wherefore would you have had me come an hour sooner?" asked the merry Charles. "That you might, with your own eyes, behold some of the wonderful manifestations of the prince of darkness." With a laugh, Charles answered that such manifestations were too common to merit much comment; but as a matter of course he asked what the manifestations were. "An example of witchcraft." At this Charles laughed, and Mr. Parris was shocked at his scepticism. "Wherefore do you laugh, unregenerated youth?" cried the pastor. "A witch! I believe there are no witches," he answered. "Would you believe your eyes, young sceptic?" "I might even doubt my own eyes." "Wherefore would you?" "Nothing is more deceptive than sight; optical delusions are common. Did you see a witch?" "Not myself; but others did." "Who?" "John, Tituba and Ann Parris saw the witches dancing on the ceiling, with their feet up and their heads down." At this Charles Stevens again laughed and answered: "Verily you are mad, Mr. Parris, to believe what those lying negroes say. They have persuaded the child into the belief that she sees strange sights." Mr. Parris became greatly excited and cried: "The maid sees the shape of Goody Nurse and the black man at night. They come and choke her, to make her sign the book." "What book?" "The devil's book. Do you not remember some time ago a stranger was at your house, who mysteriously disappeared?" Of course Charles remembered. He had never forgotten that mysterious stranger, and often wondered what had been his fate. "The same shape appeared before John Louder in the forest, where he had gone to stalk deer, and asked him to sign the red book in which is recorded the souls of the damned." This was the frightful story told by Louder on his return from the night's hunt, and many of the credulous New Englanders believed him. Mr. Parris, having become warmed up on his subject, resumed: "Charles, Charles, shake off the hard yoke of the devil. Where 'tis said, 'the whole world lies in wickedness,' 'tis by some of the ancients rendered, 'the whole world lies in the devil.' The devil is a prince, yea, the devil is a god unto all the unregenerate, and, alas, there is a whole world of them. Desolate sinner, consider what a horrid lord it is you are enslaved unto, and oh, shake off the slavery of such a lord." Charles was unprepared for such a sermon, and had no desire to be bored with it, yet he was left without choice in the matter. The young widow came to his relief and took him off under her protection and soon made him forget that he had ever been rebuked by the parson. Certainly, he had never met a more agreeable person than Sarah Williams. Her husband was a brother of Mrs. Parris, and she wielded a great influence in the minister's family. Gradually she absorbed more and more of Charles Stevens' society, telling him of her recent visit to Boston, and of the latest news from England, inquiring about his mother, and talking only on the subjects which most interested him. He thought her a charming woman. The hour was late ere they knew it, and Puritanic New England was an enemy to late hours. Sarah declared she must go home. "Come again, Sarah," said Mrs. Parris. "I will. Verily, I must go; but see, the moon is down, how dark it is." Charles was not slower to take the hint than a young man of our own day. Humanity has been the same since Eve first evinced her power over Adam in the garden. Ever since, men have been led by a pretty face often to their ruin. Charles, in a bashful, awkward way, informed the young widow that he was going the same road, and it would not be much out of his way to accompany her to her very door. Of course she was pleased, and Charles and the young widow went away together. "Have you never learned the fate of your husband, Sarah?" he asked. "No; poor Samuel is dead," she answered. "It is sad that you know not his fate. Was he drowned at sea, killed by the Indians, or murdered by the pirates?" "I know not. I am very lonely now, Charles." "I pity you." "Do you?" "Verily, I do." "Thank you, Charles." "Your parents are in Boston, are they not?" "Yes." "Do you intend to live always thus alone?" "Oh, I trust not," and the darkness concealed the sly glance which Sarah cast from her great dark eyes on the unsuspecting youth at her side. The conversation was next changed to Mr. Parris, his quarrel with his flock, and the strange phenomenon developing at his house. "What think you of it, Charles?" "It is a sham." "Oh, no, no! John, the negro man, is bewitched, and has fits." "A good flogging would very quickly bring him out of his fits." By this time they had reached the door of Sarah Williams' house. She turned upon the youth and, seizing his arm, in a voice trembling with emotion, said: "Charles, I beseech of you, as you love life and happiness, do not say aught against Mr. Parris or witchcraft. We stand on the brink of something terrible, and no one knows what the end may be." As Charles wended his way homeward, he pondered over the strange words of Sarah Williams, and asked himself: "What does she mean?" CHAPTER V. A NIGHT WITH WITCHES.[A] As bees bizz out wi' angry fyke When plundering herds assail their byke, As open pussies mortal foes, When, pop! she starts before their nose, As eager runs the market crowd, When, "Catch the thief!" resounds aloud, So Maggie runs, the witches follow, Wi' monie an eldritch skreech and hollow. --Burns. [Footnote A: The incidents narrated in this chapter were gathered from Cotton Mather's "Invisible World," and legends current at the time. Strange as it may seem, these narratives were believed, and some are from sworn testimony in court.] Most people are superstitious. In fact, we might put it stronger and say, all people are superstitious. Superstition is natural, and so long as there are great mysteries unrevealed to man, there will be superstition. So long as the great mysteries of life and death and a future existence are shrouded in the unknown, there will be believers in the supernatural. So long as there are powers and forces not understood, they will be attributed to unknown or unnatural causes. Most people are unwilling to admit, even to themselves, that they are superstitious, yet somewhere in their nature will be found a belief in some odd and ludicrous superstition. Many have a dread of the unlucky number; some will not commence a journey on Friday; they feel better when they have seen the new moon over their right shoulder, and when the matter is well sifted, we find lurking about all a strange, inexplicable superstition. Two hundred years ago, superstition was far more prevalent than at present, and some of the wisest and best of that day possessed the oddest and most unreasonable opinions. A few evenings after the incidents narrated in the foregoing chapter, Charles Stevens, who had been all day on a hunt, at night found himself near an old deserted house, four or five miles from town. The house had been built by some Puritans, years before, and the family which had lived in it were murdered by Indians. The house was currently reported at the village to be haunted; but Charles, who was not a believer in ghosts, resolved to pass the night there, in preference to braving a threatening thunderstorm. His negro man Pete was with him, and when he told Pete to gather up some dry wood, the darkey, with eyes protruding from his head, asked: "Massa Charles, am ye gwine to stay heah all night?" "Certainly, Pete, why not? A storm is coming, and we could not reach home in such a tempest." "But dis house am haunted." "Oh, nonsense, Pete. Get the wood, and don't let such foolish notions as ghosts enter your mind." Pete reluctantly obeyed, and Charles went into the house where was an old lamp which had been left there by hunters. It was nearly full of oil, and he lighted it by aid of his flint and steel. Some rude benches and three-legged stools constituted the furniture. Pete, finding that nothing could induce his master to go on, gathered a quantity of dry wood before the rain began to fall, and started a fire. The single lamp, burning dimly on the mantel, gave a weird ghost-like gleam, and Pete shuddered as he glanced into the dark corners and the black attic above, from whence his fervid imagination conjured up lost spirits, ghosts and goblins ready to seize him by the hair. Just as the first great rain-drops began to fall on the old weather-beaten roof of the deserted house, they heard the rapid tramp of feet without. Pete uttered a horrified yell and sprang into the chimney, where he was trying to start a fire. Charles told him to refrain from his silly conduct and went to the door to see who their visitors were. "Charles, Charles, is it you?" cried a voice which he recognized as John Louder. "We saw the light within and determined to seek shelter." Louder was accompanied by his neighbors Bly and Gray, all carrying guns and some small game in their hands. "You have been in the forest to-day?" "Yes, with ill luck, too. Marry! I trow, neighbors, we will have a tempest," cried Louder, as he and his companions entered the old house. A burst of thunder shook the earth; the wild winds raged about the house, making the rickety old structure creak and groan, while the air about seemed on fire. For a moment all were awed to silence; then Charles said: "It will soon pass. The rain will soon drown it." "Have you but just come?" asked Louder. "Just arrived." "I would not, under other circumstances, put up in such a place as this; but it is better than the storm raging without." The hunters, thankful for even such poor shelter, skinned some squirrels, and toasted them before the glowing fire, which Pete had built. Supper over, they drew the benches close about the fire, and while they listened to the raging storm without, conversed on the mysteries of that invisible world, which has always formed an interesting theme for the children of Adam. "Charles Stevens, only a few years ago, you harbored at your house a wizard," said Louder. Charles Stevens was half amused and half indignant. He began to expostulate with Louder, when the latter said: "Nay, nay; I charge you not with bartering with the devil; but list to me. On the selfsame day you found the stranger wounded at the road-side near the spring, we three had been hunting among the hills for deer. Some one had bewitched my gun. I know it, for when I fired, the bullet, which never failed on other occasions to go straight to the mark, went astray. All day long that mysterious stranger had followed us, grievously tormenting us and leading astray our shots, until I loaded my piece with a sixpence and fired at a large fat buck which strutted temptingly before me. Had you probed his wound I trow you would have found my sixpence buried in his side." At this, the negro, who was crouched in a corner, groaned in agony, while Charles was inclined to treat the matter lightly. Louder related how, while at the lake in the wood, he had been visited by this mysterious apparition, who offered him a book to sign, adding that he knew at once that his tormentor was a wizard or the Devil, that his eyes were in an instant changed to fire, and sulphurous smoke issued from his nostrils. "Can you ask me if I believe my own eyes and my own ears?" concluded Louder. "Those are truths, and had I signed his book, I would have been tormented by fiends and my soul forever lost." "They do say the people are ready to cry out on Goody Nurse," put in Bly. "Goody Nurse! surely not," answered Charles. "She is one of the best women I know. She is kind, good and gentle with all." "Verily, so is Satan, until he has his clutches upon you. Goody Nurse is a witch." "Beware, John Louder, how you malign such as she," said Charles, growing serious. "Have the proof before you assert." "I know whereof I speak," declared John Louder. "About five or six months ago, one morning about sunrise, I was in my chamber assaulted by the shape of Goody Nurse, which looked on me, grinned at me, and very much hurt me with a blow on the side of my head. That selfsame day, about noon, the same shape walked in the room where I was, and an apple strangely flew out of my hand, into the lap of my wife, six or eight feet from me. Can you deny such evidences as this?" "I have seen her," put in John Bly, "and once when her shape did assail me, I struck at her with my cane, and she cried out that I had torn her coat." Samuel Gray stated that he had been tormented with spectres and spirits. All this was agony to the horrified negro, who, crouching in one corner, shivered with dread, while his eyes wildly rolled in agony. "Once a shape appeared to me and did tempt me to sign a book which I refused to do, and the shape whipped me with iron rods to compel me thereunto." "Did you know the witch?" asked Charles. "Verily, I did." "Who was it?" "One Bridget Bishop. I afterward saw her at a general meeting of witches in a field, where they all partook of a diabolical sacrament, not of bread and wine, but of the flesh and blood of murdered people." At this the negro groaned and crouched closer to the chimney jamb. The storm roared without, and the rain fell with a steady pouring sound, as the superstitious hunters filled their pipes and gathered closer about the fire. "There is no need to deny longer that witches exist," said John Louder. "I have seen enough of them to convince me beyond question that there are witches. Ann Durent one day left her infant, William Durent with Amy Dunny, a woman who has since been known to be a witch. Though Dunny was an old woman, she afterward confessed she had given suck to the child, whereat Durent was displeased and Dunny went away with discontent and menaces. "The night after, the child fell into strange and sad fits, wherein it continued for divers weeks. One doctor Jacob, who knew something of witches, advised her to hang up the child's blanket in the chimney corner all day, and at night, when she went to put the child into it, if she found anything in it, then to throw it without fear into the fire. Accordingly at night when she took down the blanket, there fell out of it a great toad, which hopped up and down the hearth, uttering strange cries. A boy caught it, and held it in the fire with the tongs, where it made a horrible noise, and flashed like gunpowder, with a report like that of a pistol. Whereupon the toad was seen no more. The next day a kinswoman of Dunny said she was grievously scorched with the fire, and on going to the house it was found to be even so. After the burning of the toad, the child recovered." "I did not believe in witchcraft at first," remarked Samuel Gray, by way of preface to some weird account of his own; "but I cannot doubt my senses. I had been to Boston on business for the parson and, being belated, was riding along the road homeward. I had just reached the old Plaistowe field, when I suddenly discovered a long black something, like a monster cat or panther, running along the fence at my side. I was seized of some strange power and despite my will was forced to wink my eyes. If I closed my eyes but for a second, the black object was back at the point where it started from and ran along again, until I closed my eyes, when it appeared where I had first seen it. My horse became affrighted and ran away with me." John Bly knocked the ashes from his pipe and began: "I have an uncle in Virginia, who was sorely tried by witches. One witch in the neighborhood, especially, did grievously torment him. He would go to his door and see his field full of cattle; but on entering the field itself, no cattle were to be seen. Knowing full well that he was bewitched, he loaded his gun with a silver bullet, and one day fired at a large white cow. Instantly every beast disappeared, and he saw an old woman over the hill limping as if in pain. It was the suspected witch, whom he had shot in the leg. She did not bother him any more; but another witch used to come at night and ride him. She would shake a witch bridle over his head, utter some incantation and my uncle would be turned into a horse, and she would ride him hard until morning. Then she would bring him home, remove the spell, and he would be asleep in bed at dawn. One night he was thus ridden to a witch ball and tied to a tree. He rubbed his head against the tree until he got the bridle off, the spell was broken and he was once more a man. He took the enchanted bridle and laid in wait for the witch. As she emerged from the door, he seized her, shook the bridle over her head, repeated the words she had used, and instantly she was changed into a fine gray mare. He mounted her and rode her furiously, out of revenge, for many miles to a blacksmith, where he alighted and, awaking the smith, had him shoe the mare at once. Then he rode her nearly home, when he turned her loose. "Next morning he went to the home of his neighbor, whose wife he suspected of being the witch, and inquired after the health of the family. "'My wife is ill,' answered the head of the house. "'What ails her?' "'Alas, I know not.' "My uncle went into the room where the woman lay in bed suffering greatly. "'Are you very ill?' my uncle asked. "'I am sick almost unto death,' the woman answered. "'Let me hold your hand and see if you have a fever.' "'No, no, no!' and she sought to hide her hands under the cover; but my uncle was a resolute man, and he seized her hand and drew it from beneath the cover, and behold, a horseshoe was nailed unto it. On each hand and each foot there was nailed a shoe which the smith at the trial swore he had put on the gray mare the night before." The negro groaned at the conclusion of the narrative, and his face was so expressive of agony, that it formed a comical picture, exciting the laughter of Charles Stevens, and Bly supposing that he was skeptical of the story he had told said: "Do you doubt the truth of my narrative, my merry fellow? Perchance you may some day feel the clutches of a witch upon you, then, pray God, beware." "These are matters of too serious moment to excite one to laughter," put in Mr. Gray, solemnly. "Since the devil is come down in great wrath upon us, let us not in our great wrath against one another provide a lodging for him." Charles, the reckless, merry youth, treated the matter as it would be treated at the present day. "You need not deride the idea of witches changing people to horses," said John Louder, who, according to accounts given of him, by Cotton Mather, was either an accomplished liar or a man possessing a vivid imagination. "Have you ever had any personal experience?" asked Charles. "Indeed I have." "What was it?" "Goody Nurse does such things; but she has ever been too shrewd to be caught as was the witch in Virginia." "Goody Nurse! For shame on you, Mr. Louder, to accuse that good, righteous woman with offences as heinous as having familiar spirits." With a solemnity so earnest that sincerity could scarcely be doubted, John Louder remarked: "Glad should I be, if I had never known the name of this woman, or never had this occasion to mention so much as her name. Goody Nurse is the most base of all God's creatures, for she takes unto herself a seeming holiness." "What hath she done?" "Listen and I will tell you. She hath grievously afflicted my children. At night her shape appears to them accompanied by a black man. She hath power to change her own form into an animal, a bird or insect at will. Once my little girl was attacked by a large black cat, which she recognized as Goody Nurse. "Not only does she afflict my children; but my cattle, my gun and myself have been bewitched by her." John Louder here paused and, refilling his pipe, lighted it, took a few whiffs to get it going and resumed: "If you will listen to what I say, I will tell you of a certain incident which befell me last summer. One night I had retired early to rest, for, having been in the fields all day, I was somewhat weary. I fell asleep and was dreaming of pleasant forests, running brooks, green meadows, thrift and plenty, when suddenly methought I heard a voice calling unto me. "'John Louder! John Louder!' it seemed to say. "I started up from my pillow and sat on the side of my bed. The day had been very hot, the night was still warm, and the window had been left open, that the good south breeze might refresh my heated face. Suddenly in through that window came a great black object. I could see the eyes like blue flames, the face with a hideous grin, great sharp ears and short horns on top. He had bat-like wings, a tail, and on one foot was a cloven hoof. "I was too much affrighted to speak; but the shape motioned me to rise. I did so. An instant later, lo, a second shape appeared, and this was Rebecca Nurse. They did not ask me to sign the book, this time, for I had declined so often to do so, that they thought it little need. "'Come!' said Goody Nurse. I rose and followed, I own, for I was under some strange spell. "We got out of the house, I know not how, and I saw a great many people waiting. Some were on the ground, and some were in the air. All were on broomsticks. "'Come, John Louder, mount behind me,' said Rebecca Nurse, and I was compelled to get behind her." "What was she riding?" Charles asked. "A broomstick." Charles, by an effort, restrained the laughter, which the answer had so nearly created, and John Louder resumed: "She uttered a strange, terrible cry, and we all rose in the air on the broomsticks and away we sped like birds. I was in constant fear lest I should fall and be dashed to death on the ground. I clung to her, and she, uttering strange screeches and cries, sped on like a bird through the air. Her broomstick rose and fell at her command. "At last we descended to a valley, and all the witches save Goody Nurse disappeared. Here I soon learned that, instead of riding, I was to be ridden. By a few magic words, my face became elongated, my body grew, my hands and feet became hoofs, my body was covered with hair, I had a mane and tail, and I was a horse, with a saddle on my back, and a bit in my mouth. Mounting me, the old witch cried: "'Be going, Johnnie, I will give you sore bones ere the cock crows.' [Illustration: "We all rose in the air on broomsticks."] "I was goaded to desperation. I ran, I leaped, I sprang from precipices so high, that, had I not been held up by the spirits of the air, I must have been dashed to death on the rocks below. I was agonized, and I wanted to die. "At last we came to a valley and a house, which I recognized as the old Ames Meeting House. Here a number of poor wretches like myself who had been changed to beasts and ridden almost to death, were tied up. Some of them were horses, some were bulls, and one had been changed to a ram, another to an ostrich. I was tied to a tree so near to the door of the house, that I could see within. "Verily, it was such a sight as I pray God I may never witness again. There were the witches at their infernal feast. The liver and lungs, torn warm and bleeding from some helpless wretch, lay on the table. They partook of the food, also the diabolical sacrament, and then commenced their dance. I saw them dancing with their feet up to the ceiling and their heads hanging down. "In my agony of spirit, I seized the tree nearest me in my mouth, and bit it so hard that I broke out the tooth," and here the narrator exhibited his teeth, one of the front ones being gone. "You see the tooth is missing. A week later I went to the Ames Meeting House and found the tooth sticking in the tree. "After they had kept up their infernal dance for an hour, Goody Nurse again appeared and, mounting on my back, did ride me most grievously hard over the hills and plains, until we came to my home. Then she suddenly slipped from my back and hurled me head first through the window, where I fell in my own shape by the side of the bed." Charles Stevens, feeling assured that he had a solution to the marvellous story, said: "It was no doubt a frightful dream, which to you seemed real." "Dream, was it?" cried Louder. "I sprang to my feet, ran to the window, and, sure as I am a white man, there was Goody Nurse soaring away through the air on a broomstick." When he had finished his story, the horrified group shuddered and gathered closer about the fire which had burned low on the hearth. Pete tried to lay on a stick with his trembling hand, but was not equal to the task. The lamp-wick burned low in its socket, flickered and threatened to go out, while the storm without howled with increasing fury, the rain beat against the side of the house, and the thunder crashed overhead. A shuddering silence seemed to have seized upon the group, and they sat watching the flickering lamp and smouldering fire, when suddenly all were roused by a loud rapping at the door. The entire group started up in alarm, the negro howled, and Bly gasped: "God save us!" "The whole armor of God shield us against the witches," groaned John Louder. "Heaven help us now!" whispered Gray. Charles Stevens, though scarcely more than a youth, was the most self-possessed of all. He rose and opened the door. A blinding flash revealed a pair of horses with drooping heads in the rain and storm, while a man and young girl, the late riders of the horses, stood at the door holding the reins. As soon as the door was opened, the man, holding the little maiden's hand in his own, stepped into the house to be out of the gust of wind and rain. "We are belated travellers, kind sir, and seek shelter from the storm," the stranger began. At sound of his voice, John Louder sprang to his feet, and, seizing the lamp, held it close to the man's face. Starting back with a yell, he cried: "Away! wizard, devil, away! You are he who offered the book to me. Away! away! or I will slay you!" The startled stranger answered: "I never saw you before." John Louder insisted that he was the evil one who had met him at the lake while he was stalking the deer, and had offered him the book to sign. "I never saw you before in my life," the stranger answered, his theatrical tones making a strange impression on the superstitious Louder. He read in his face the look of a demon, and continued to cry: "You must, you shall go away! Prince of darkness, back into the storm which your powers created!" Charles Stevens was too much amazed to speak for some moments, for, by the combined aid of the lamp and firelight, he saw before him the very features of the man whom he had found wounded and almost dying at the spring. The wanderer turned his sad and handsome face to the youth and asked: "Can you take us to shelter?" "I did once, and will again." "You did once? Truly you mistake, for I never saw you before. My child will perish in this storm." "It is five miles to my house; but if you will come with me I will show you the way." They tried to dissuade Charles from going out into the driving storm; but he was not moved by their entreaties. He only saw the young maiden's pale, sweet face and appealing blue eyes, and he set off with the two through the storm, which beat about them so that they were quite wet to the skin when the house of widow Stevens was reached. The man and the maid were given beds and dry clothing. Next morning, Charles asked the stranger: "Are you not the man who came here in 1684, wounded?" "I am not. I was never here before. What is your name?" "Charles Stevens." "Have you relatives in Boston?" "Yes, my grandfather, Mathew Stevens, who was a Spaniard by birth and called Mattheo Estevan, died in Boston twenty years ago, and I have uncles, aunts and cousins living there." "Have you relatives in Virginia?" "I have cousins." "Is one Robert Stevens?" "He is." "I know him, he befriended me and sent me here." Then the stranger told how he had been an indented slave in Virginia, and escaped from a cruel master through the aid of Robert Stevens. The strangers were George Waters and his daughter Cora. CHAPTER VI. THE CHARTER OAK. When time, who steals our years away Shall steal our pleasures too, The memory of the past will stay, And half our joys renew. --Moore. The Stevens family was growing with the colonies. Of the descendants of Mathew Stevens who came to New Plymouth in the _Mayflower_, there were many living in Boston, New York, Salem, Rhode Island and Connecticut. The family, widely scattered as its members were, never lost track of each other. They knew all their relatives in Virginia, Maryland and Carolinia. Charles Stevens, but a youth, was on a visit to Connecticut, when an event transpired, which has since become historical. An aunt of Charles Stevens was the wife of a certain Captain Wadsworth, and Charles was visiting at this aunt's house when the incident happened. As the student of American history doubtless knows, the tyrannical Governor Andros of New York, claimed dominion over all that scope of country denominated as the New Netherland, a very indefinite term applied to a great scope of country extending from Maryland to the Connecticut River, to which point Andros claimed jurisdiction. As early as 1675, he went to the mouth of the Connecticut River with a small naval force, to assert his authority. Captain Bull, the commander of a small garrison at Saybrook, permitted him to land; but when the governor began to read his commission, Bull ordered him to be silent. Andros was compelled to yield to the bold spirit and superior military power of Captain Bull, and in a towering passion he returned to New York, flinging curses and threats behind him at the people of Connecticut in general and Captain Bull in particular. More than a dozen years had passed since Andros had been humiliated by Connecticut, and, despite his anathemas, the colony quietly pursued the even tenor of its way. At the end of that period, a most exciting incident occurred at Hartford, during the visit of Charles Stevens to that city. This historical incident has about it all the rosy hues of romance. On the very day of the arrival of Charles Stevens at Hartford, while he was talking with Captain Wadsworth, his aunt's husband, a member of the colonial assembly suddenly entered the house, his face flushed with excitement. "What has happened, Mr. Prince?" Wadsworth asked, for he could see that the man was greatly excited. "Governor Andros has come again," gasped Mr. Prince. "Why should that alarm us? The fellow, though given to boasting, is not dangerous, or liable to put his threats into execution." "But he has grown dangerous!" declared Mr. Prince. "The liberties of the colony are involved. Andros appears as a usurper of authority--the willing instrument of King James the second, who, it seems, has determined to hold absolute rule over all New England." Captain Wadsworth became a little uneasy, though he was still inclined to treat the matter lightly. Mr. Prince, to convince him of the danger they were in, continued: "You remember that on his arrival in New York as governor of New Netherland, he demanded the surrender of all the colonial charters into his hands." "I remember such an order, and furthermore that all the colonies complied with his infamous demand save Connecticut. We have stubbornly refused to yield our charter voluntarily, for it is the guardian of our political rights." "That is true, Captain Wadsworth," continued Mr. Prince, "and, to subdue our stubbornness, this viceroy has come to Hartford with sixty armed men, to demand the surrender of the charter in person." Captain Wadsworth bounded to his feet in a rage and, placing his hand on the hilt of his sword, declared: "He shall not have it!" Arriving at Hartford on the 31st of October, 1687, Andros found the general assembly in session in the meeting-house. The members received him with the courtesy due to his rank. Before that body, with armed men at his back, he demanded a formal surrender of the precious charter into his hands. The members of the assembly were alarmed and amazed at his request. The day was well nigh spent, when he arrived, and the members were engaged in a heated debate on a subject of the utmost importance. "Wait until the discussion is ended, and then we will listen to you, governor," the president of the assembly answered to the demand of Andros. "I have come for the charter, and I will have it!" said Andros, in his haughty, imperious manner. He consented, however, to await the discussion; but as soon as it was ended, he declared that he would have the charter. Captain Wadsworth chanced to be at his house on the arrival of Andros, and, as everybody had the most implicit confidence in the captain's good sense, a member was despatched for him, as has been stated. After the captain had taken two or three turns across the room, he paused and asked: "What is the assembly doing?" "Engaged in a debate." "And will he wait until it has ended?" "He has promised to do so." "Hasten back, Mr. Prince, and whisper in the ears of every member to prolong the debate. It will give us time. I am going to do something desperate. Tell them to discuss any side and every side of the question at issue, and have your longest speech-makers do their best--talk on anything and everything whether to the point or against it, so that they kill time until night." Mr. Prince fixed his amazed eyes on the captain's face and read there a desperate determination. "Captain," he began. "I know what you would say, Mr. Prince; but it is needless to waste words; my resolution is formed, and I am going to save our charter or perish in the attempt." "I hope you will not endanger your own life----" "Mr. Prince, our liberties are in danger, and there is no time to think of life. Hasten back to the assembly and I will follow in a few moments." Mr. Prince bowed and hastily returned to the house where the assembly was in session. As soon as he was gone, Charles Stevens said: "Uncle, something terrible is going to happen, I know from your look and words. Won't you let me go with you?" Captain Wadsworth fixed his eyes on the youth and answered: "Yes, Charles, you will answer." "What do you mean, uncle?" "Are you willing to help us?" "I am." "Then you can put out the lights." "What lights?" "At the proper time, put out the lights in the assembly; but wait; I will go and muster the train-bands, and have them at hand to prevent the governor's soldiers from injuring the members of the general assembly." Captain Wadsworth went out, and on his way looked into the State-house where everything was going as well as he could have wished. He found the debaters cudgelling their brains for something to say to the point or against it. Never did debaters take greater interest in a minor subject. He summoned his train-bands to assemble at sunset. This done, he went home and found Charles eagerly waiting. "Charles, you see the soldiers of Governor Andros at the State-house?" "Yes." "They are sent to take our liberties. My train-bands have their eyes on them." "What do you intend doing, uncle? Will you fight them?" "Not unless they force it. We have no wish to shed their blood. Listen; the charter is to be brought to the assembly in the same mahogany box in which Charles II. sent it to Governor Winthrop. When it is laid on the table, the lights are to be snuffed out. Do you understand?" "Yes." "Can you do it?" "Nothing is easier." "Remember, the work must be done right at the time, not too soon, nor too late." "I will do it at the exact moment, uncle. Have no fear on that score." The sun was setting, and the captain said: "Come, Charles, let us hasten to the assembly. Look well at the setting sun, you may not live to see it rise." Charles Stevens smiled and answered: "You do not expect me to be a coward?" "By no means; but I want you to be fully impressed with the seriousness of your mission." They went to the general assembly at the meeting-house, where they found everything in the utmost confusion. The debate was at a white heat. "Take your place, Charles, and be prepared to do your part," whispered Captain Wadsworth. Charles got as close to the long table used by the secretaries as possible, without attracting special attention. The discussion went on, darkness came and four lighted candles were placed on the table, and two set on a shelf on the wall. Those two candles on the wall were a great annoyance to Charles until he saw a man stationed near them. Time passed on, and darkness had enveloped the earth. The debate was drawing to a close, or, in fact, had gone as far as it could, without arousing the suspicion of Governor Andros. When it ended, the governor of New York declared: "I have waited as long as I will. I demand the charter at once. As governor of New York, this being a part of my dominion, I will have it." "Wait----" began the president. [Illustration: Charles Stevens, at one sweep, snuffed out every candle on the table.] "No; already I have waited too long. Bring it at once." There have been so many stories told of the Charter Oak that the author here feels justified in stepping aside from the narrative to quote from the journal for June 15, 1687, the following entry: "Sundry of the court, desiring that the patent or charter might be brought into the court, the secretary sent for it, and informed the governor and court that he had the charter, and showed it to the court, and the governor bid him put it into the box again, and lay it on the table, and leave the key in the box, which he did, forthwith." Affairs had proceeded to this point, when Charles Stevens, who had crept quite close to the table, with a long stick, at one sweep, snuffed out every candle on the table. "Treason! treason!" cried Andros, and at this moment the two remaining candles on the wall were extinguished. "Lights! lights!" cried a voice, and at the same moment, Andros shouted: "The boy did it! kill the boy and seize the box!" His hand was outstretched to take the box from the table, when the same stick which had extinguished the lights gave his knuckles such a rap that he uttered a yell of pain. Though the lights were extinguished, through the windows the faint starlight dimly illuminated the scene. Charles Stevens saw the outline of his uncle, who seized the box and hurried with it from the meeting-house. He followed him as rapidly as he could. A terrible uproar and confusion inside attracted the attention of everybody, so Captain Wadsworth escaped without being noticed, with the precious document under his arm. The youth was close behind him and, when they were outside, seized his arm. "Unhand me!" cried Captain Wadsworth, snatching his sword from its sheath. "Uncle!" "Charles, it is you? Marry! boy, have a care how you approach me. Why! I was about to run you through." "Have you got it?" "Whist! Charles, the governor's soldiers are near. They may hear you." "They have enough to do in there," answered the boy, pointing toward the meeting-house, in which pandemonium seemed to reign. The voice of Governor Andros could be heard loud above the others calling to the troops to come to his aid. The soldiers began to crowd about the house, when, at a signal from Captain Wadsworth, the train-bands came on the scene and prepared to grapple with the soldiers. A bloody fight seemed inevitable; but Governor Andros, who was a coward as well as tyrant, at sign of danger, begged peace. "Lights! Light the candles!" he cried, "and we will have peace." When the candles were relighted, the members were seen seated about the table in perfect order; but the charter could nowhere be seen. For a few moments, the outwitted governor stood glaring at first one and then the other of the assembly. His passion choked him to silence at first; but as soon as he partially recovered his self-possession, he demanded: "Where is the charter?" No one answered, and, with bosom swelling with indignation at being cheated by a device of the shrewd members of the assembly, he threatened to have them arrested. "Governor Andros, we dispute your authority here, and have disputed it before," said a member of the assembly. "You have your soldiers at the door and we have the train-bands of Connecticut ready to defend us against violence." "Who of you has the charter?" "I have not," answered one. "Nor I." "Nor I," answered each and every one. "It was the boy," cried the enraged governor. "I saw him; he struck my hand in the dark; yet I knew it was he. Where is he? Whose son is he?" Every member of the assembly shook their heads. "We do not know him. He does not live in Connecticut." "Where does he live?" "He is from Massachusetts and beyond even the claimed bounds of your jurisdiction." "So this is another trick. You have imported one from a distant colony to steal the charter," the indignant governor cried. "We resent your insult!" cried an officer of the assembly. "The imputation is false!" A scene far more stormy than any which had preceded it followed. The governor threatened the colony with the fury of his vengeance, and vowed he would report them to the king as in open rebellion against his authority. The colonists were shrewd and firm, and though some made very sarcastic answers to the governor's charges, they were, in the main, quite respectful. Meanwhile, Captain Wadsworth and his wife's nephew, having the charter, hurried through the crowd, which opened for them to pass and closed behind them. Once in the street they hastened away at a rapid pace. "What are you going to do with it?" Charles asked. "Place it where it cannot be found by the tyrants," said the gallant captain. "There is a venerable oak with a hollow in it. In this cavity we will hide the charter, and none but you and I will know where it is. You can return to Salem, beyond reach of Governor Andros, and, as for me, he can flay me alive before I will reveal the hiding-place." They had reached the outskirts of the village and paused beneath the wide-spreading branches of a great oak tree. The wind, sighing through the branches, seemed to the liberty-adoring Wadsworth to be whispering of freedom. [Illustration: The Charter Oak.] "Stand a little way off, Charles," commanded the captain. "And watch to see that no one is observing me." Then, while Charles stood as sentry, he went to the tree and put the charter in the hollow. Little did the captain or his youthful assistant dream that their simple act would make the old tree historic. As long as American students shall study the history of their country, will "The Charter Oak" be famous. That same night Charles Stevens, fearing the wrath of Governor Andros, set out for his home at Salem. The tree in which the document was hidden was ever afterward known as the "Charter Oak." It remained vigorous, bearing fruit every year until a little after midnight, August, 1856, when it was prostrated by a heavy storm of wind. It stood in a vacant lot on the south side of Charter Street, a few rods from Main Street, in the city of Hartford. When, in 1687, Andros demanded the surrender of the colonial charters, the inhabitants of Rhode Island instantly yielded. When the order for the seizure of the charters was first made known, the assembly of Rhode Island sent a most loyal address to the king saying: "We humbly prostrate ourselves, our privileges, our all, at the gracious feet of your majesty, with an entire resolution to serve you with faithful hearts." Andros therefore found no opposition in the little colony. Within a month after his arrival at Boston, he proceeded to Rhode Island, where he was graciously received. He formally dissolved the assembly, broke the seal of the colony, which bore the figure of an anchor, and the word Hope, admitted five of the inhabitants into his legislative council, and assumed the functions of governor; but he did not take away the parchment on which the charter was written. The people of Rhode Island were restive under the petty tyranny of Andros, and when they heard of the imprisonment of the despot at Boston, in 1689, they assembled at Newport, resumed popular government under the old charter, and began a new independent political career. From that time, until the enforced union of the colonies for mutual defence, at the breaking out of the French and Indian war, the inhabitants of Rhode Island bore their share in the defensive efforts, especially when the hostile savages hung along the frontiers of New York like an ill-omened cloud. The history of that commonwealth is identified with that of all New England, from the beginning of King William's war, soon after, to the expulsion of Andros. Six years after the charter was hidden in the oak, Andros was succeeded by Governor Fletcher who made an attempt to control Connecticut, but was humbled and prevented and, in fact, driven away by Captain Wadsworth. In 1689, the charter was brought out from the long place of concealment, a popular assembly was convened, Robert Treat was chosen governor, and Connecticut again assumed the position of an independent colony. The name of Captain Wadsworth will ever be dear to the people of Connecticut, and so will the venerable oak which concealed their charter. CHAPTER VII. TWO MEN WHO LOOK ALIKE. I, to the world, am like a drop of water, That in the ocean seeks another drop, Who, falling there to find his fellow forth, Unseen, inquisitive, confounds himself. So I, to find a mother, and a brother, In quest of them, unhappy, lose myself. --Shakespeare. Mr. George Waters, the escaped slave from Virginia, lived very quietly at the home of Mrs. Stevens. His daughter was constantly with him, save when he made strange and unknown pilgrimages. During these mysterious visits, she stayed at the house of Mrs. Stevens. Cora was a quiet little maid, whose hopes seemed crushed by some calamity. She never forgot that her father, the once proud man, had been arrested and sold as a slave. That long period of servitude, the flight and the fight were things which never faded from her mind. In the eyes of Charles Stevens, there was something singularly attractive about this child. She was so strange, so silent and melancholy, that he felt for her the keenest sympathy. She lived in the shadow of some dark mystery, which he could not fathom. Her strange father was non-communicative and silent as the grave. Charles felt an interest in these people. It was a strange interest, one he could not understand himself, and like all good boys, when he wanted wisdom and information, he went to his mother. "Mother, do you ever talk with Cora?" he asked one day. "Yes." "Do you ever talk with her about England?" "I have; but it seems her father was a roving player, without any fixed abode." "And her mother?" Mrs. Stevens, who was busy sewing, answered: "I know nothing of her mother." "Have you never asked about her?" "No." "Has she never mentioned her mother's name?" "She has not." The girl was nearly always at the home of Mrs. Stevens, though she sometimes took strolls alone through the town. The melancholy child attracted the attention of Good-wife Nurse, who asked her to her house and brought her a mug of fresh milk. "Do you belong here?" asked Goody Nurse. "I suppose we do," was the answer. "Father is here part of the time." "And your mother?" "I have none." "Did she die in England?" "Alas, I know not." "Do you remember seeing her?" Cora shook her head, and a shadow passed over her face. "Has your father ever told you about her?" asked Goody Nurse. "No, madame; I have not heard him speak her name." Then Goody Nurse, with a curiosity that was natural, sought to question the child about her former life; but all she could gain was that her father had been a strolling player. Players were not in good repute in New England at this time. The prejudice against the theatre, growing out of the rupture between the actors and the Roman Catholic Church, was inherited by the Protestants, who, to some extent, still continue their war against the stage. The fact that George Waters had been an actor was sufficient to condemn him in the eyes of the Puritans. When Mr. Parris learned that a player was in their midst, he elevated his ecclesiastical nose, and seemed to sniff the brimstone of Satan. When he learned that some of the dissenting members of his congregation had been guilty of the heinous sin of speaking kind words to the motherless child of a player, he shook his wise head knowingly and declared, "Truly Satan is kind to his own." He made the player a subject for his next Lord's day sermon, in which he sought to pervert the scriptures to suit his prejudices. The subject of witchcraft was beginning to excite some attention, and he managed in almost every sermon to ring in enough of it to keep up the agitation. In the course of his discourse, he declared: "The New Englanders are a people of God settled in those, which were the devil's territories, and it may easily be supposed that the devil is exceedingly disturbed, when he perceives such people here, accomplishing the promises of old, made unto our blessed Jesus, that he should have the uttermost parts of the earth for his possessions. There was not a greater uproar among the Ephesians, when the gospel was first brought among them, than there is now among the powers of the air after whom those Ephesians walked, when first the silver trumpets of the gospel made the joyful sound in their dark domain. The devil, thus irritated, hath tried all sorts of methods to overturn this poor plantation." With this preface he assailed the unfortunate actor and his innocent child as being tools of his Satanic majesty, and denounced those who would lift the wounded, bleeding and beaten wayfarer from the road-side, carry him home, or offer his unfortunate child a cup of cold water as agents of darkness. Mr. Parris had forgotten some of the commands of the divine Master, whom he professed to follow. He assailed "the little maid furiously." That child of sorrow and of tears, whom he had never seen before, and whose young heart ached from the wrongs heaped on her innocent young head, was to him an object of demoniac fury. She sat in the rear of the church, and, covering her face with her hands as Mr. Parris assailed her father and herself, the tears silently trickled through her small fingers. Goody Nurse, who sat near the child, bent over and whispered some encouraging words in her ear. "Verily, the Devil's own will be the Devil's own!" declared the pastor, his eyes flashing with fury. "When one of Satan's imps hath been wounded by a shaft of truth, shot from the bow of God, the angels of darkness, verily, will hover over the suffering devil, and seek to undo what God hath done." He called on those suffering from the familiar spirits to behold one even now willing to soothe the offspring of a wicked player. When Cora left the church that day, she asked Mrs. Stevens why Mr. Parris hated her and said such hard things about her. "Surely I never did him harm, and why doth he assail me so cruelly?" Mrs. Stevens strove to comfort the wounded feelings of the child, by assuring Cora that it was the mistaken zeal of the minister, who, but for the scales of prejudice covering his eyes, would by no means be so cruel with her. "Oh, would that father would return and take me from this place!" sobbed Cora. "Cora, are you tired of me? Have I not been kind to you?" "Yes, you have, and I thank you for all your goodness." "Are you not happy with me?" "Yes, I could be very happy, did not Mr. Parris say such vile things of my father and myself. Do you think me one of Satan's imps?" "No, no, sweet child; you are one of God's angels." "But I am the child of a player, and he said none such could enter into the kingdom of the Lord." "That is but a display of his prejudice and ignorance, Cora. I have read the good book from beginning to end, and nowhere do I see anything in God's Holy Bible that excludes even the player from entering into eternal rest." "But he, the interpreter of God's word, says we are doomed." "He says more than is narrated in the Book of Life. If the ministers would only keep constantly in their minds these words: 'For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book. If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book,' then there would be less misconstructions put upon the Bible. Men would be more careful not to accuse their brother, while the beam was in their own eye. Why, Cora, you are but a child, and Christ said: 'Suffer little children to come unto me and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of Heaven.' Now, instead of following the holy precept of the Master, whom he feigns to serve, he declares you an imp of darkness. His zeal hath made him mad. Where is your father?" "Alas, I know not." "When will he return?" "I know not." "What are his plans?" "I am wholly ignorant of them." Next day Charles Stevens was wandering through the forest near the spring where he rescued the wounded stranger some years before. Often had he thought of that melancholy man and the strange resemblance he bore to Cora's father. "Where is he now, and what has been his fate?" he thought, as he strolled toward the spring. Suddenly he paused and looked toward the brooklet. Well might he be startled. The negro servants, John and Tituba, were engaged in some of their diabolical incantations in the stream. Kneeling by the water's side, each bent until their foreheads touched the water, then, starting up, they murmured strange fetich words in their diabolical African tongue. John had a whip in his hand, with which he lashed the water furiously, and uttered his eldritch shrieks. Charles paused, spell-bound, hardly knowing what to make of the strange conduct of the negroes, and wishing he could lay the whip about their own bare shoulders. During a lull in their performance, he heard a rapid tread of feet coming toward the spring, and beheld his mother, followed by Cora. No sooner did the negroes see them, than they left off lashing the water with their whips and, with the most wild, unearthly screams, bounded from the spot and ran off into the woods. Mrs. Stevens and Cora both screamed, and were about to fly, when Charles emerged from his place of concealment, saying: "Don't run away, I am here." "Charles! Charles! what were they doing?" Mrs. Stevens asked. "It was some of their wild incantations," he answered. "The knaves deserve to have a good whip laid about their bare backs." "Truly, they do. Why did they fly at our approach?" asked Mrs. Stevens. "Perhaps the foolish creatures thought their spell was broken," Charles answered. "I am so affrighted," said Cora, shuddering. She was growing dizzy, and Mrs. Stevens said: "Catch her, or she will fall." He bore her to the spring and, kneeling by the brook, bathed the fair white brow, until she opened her eyes and murmured: "Mother!" Many times afterward, both mother and son, recalling the incident, wondered why she, for the first time, had called for her mother. At all other times and on all other occasions, the maid persistently denied that she knew aught of her mother. A few days later, her father, who had mysteriously and unceremoniously disappeared, returned. No one asked any questions as to where he had been, or what business had engaged his attention. He gave the widow some golden guineas for her care of his child. That night Charles came accidentally upon the father and daughter in the garden. They were sitting in a green bower, partially screened from view, so he approached to within a few paces without being seen. "Father, have you heard anything more?" she asked. "No." "Nor have you seen any one from there?" "I have not." "Do you suppose danger is over?" "Danger never will be over, until there has been a revolution in the government." Long did Charles ponder over those mysterious words, and ask himself what they meant. He again conferred with his mother, and when she had heard all he had to tell, she was constrained to ask: "Who are they?" Mrs. Stevens, like her son, was too well bred to pry into the secrets of her guests. A few days later Mr. Waters again disappeared and was not seen for two months. It was at the close of a sultry day in July that Mr. John Louder and his neighbor Bly were returning from Boston in a cart. As usual, their conversation was of the solemn kind, characteristic of the Puritan. The many mysteries in nature and out of nature formed their principal topic. Each had had his long, ardent conflict with sin and Satan. Each was a firm believer in personal devils and legions of devils. The spirits of the air were thought to be all about them, even at that very moment. "Neighbor Bly, I believe that she is a witch," said Louder. "Verily, even so do I." "If the magistrates would so adjudge her, she would, according to the laws, be hung." "Truly she would. I saw her shape again last night." "Did you?" "Yes, she came to my bed and did grievously torment me, by sitting for fully two hours upon my chest." "Why did you not call upon the name of God, and she would have gone?" "Fain would I have done so, had it been possible; but her appearance took from me the power of speech, and I was dumb. She sat upon me, grinning at me, and she said: "'Would ye speak if ye could?' "Then at last a yellow bird came in at the window and whispered some words in her ear, and the shape flew away with a black man." "Verily, neighbor Bly, you have been grievously tormented; yet little worse is your case than my own. My cattle are bewitched and die. The witches hurl balls at them from any distance, which strike them, and they shrink and die at once. The other morn I had salted my cows, when one suddenly showed strange signs of illness and soon fell on her side and did die. Neighbor Towne, who witnessed it, said the poor beast was struck with a witch ball. He says they gather the hair from the back of the afflicted beasts and, making a ball of it from the spittle of their mouths, blow their breath upon it and hurl it any distance to an object. The object so struck will at once wither and die. He said that, should I strip the hair from the spine of the dead brute, a ball made of it would strike down any other beast of the herd, even if thrown by my own hand." With a sigh, Bly said: "Truly, we live in the age when the devil is to be loosed for a little season. Would to Heaven, St. John would again chain the dragon." The sun had almost dipped behind the long line of blue hills. A listless repose, peculiar to New England autumns, seemed to have settled over the hills and valleys about the neighborhood of Salem. A drowsy, dreamy influence overhung land and sea and pervaded the very atmosphere. No wonder that the superstitious Puritans of that day and age believed the place bewitched. Certain it is, that it seemed under the same power, that held strange spells over the minds of the good people, causing them to walk in a continual revery. These early Puritans were given to all kinds of marvellous beliefs, as we have seen, subjected to trances and visions, and frequently saw strange sights, and heard wonderful noises in the air. All Salem abounded with local tales, haunted spots and twilight superstitions. Shooting stars and flaming meteors were more often seen about that enchanted spot, than in any other part of the country. The two travellers silently jogged along in the cart, casting occasional glances down the road. Just before reaching Salem, the road dipped below the trees, which concealed some glens and breaks, above which only the church, standing in the suburb of the village, could be seen. The sequestered situation of the meeting-house seemed to have always made it a favorite resort for troubled spirits. It stood on a knoll, surrounded by beech trees and lofty elms, from among which its decent whitewashed walls shone modestly forth, as the only bright object among so much sombre gloom and shade. A broad path wound its way down a gentle slope to the creek, which emptied into the bay, bordered by tall trees, through which glimpses of the sea and blue hills might be caught. Between the travellers and the church extended a wide, woody dell, along which the brook roved among broken rocks and trunks of fallen trees. Over a deep, black part of the stream was thrown a bridge. The road which led up to it was thickly shaded, and in places indistinguishable at any great distance by overhanging trees, which cast a gloom about it, even in daytime, but occasioned a fearful darkness at night. This place was reputed to be a favorite resort for the witches of Salem, for they had frequently been seen dancing upon the bridge. It was with some degree of nervousness that the travellers drew near to the bridge. The sun had dipped behind the blue hills of the west, and the pale, lambent glow of the evening star shot athwart the sky, ere the bridge was reached. While it was yet twilight in the uplands, it was night here. The hollow sounds of the horse's feet on the bridge chilled the hearts of the occupants of the cart, and when the outline of a horse and rider appeared on the other side, Louder seized Bly by the arm and gasped: "God save us! Where did they come from? They were not there a moment before." "They rose up out of the ground." Their horse, which was very much frightened, would have dashed down the road had not the horseman brought his steed directly across their path. "Your beast seems affrighted," coolly remarked the horseman. At sound of his voice, Louder gave utterance to a wild yell of dismay. The horse stood trembling and refused to move the cart an inch. Louder rose from the seat and glared through the deepening gloom at the stranger. That white face, those great, sad eyes once seen could never be forgotten. He uttered a yell of horror, crying: "Begone, wizard! The armor of God be between me and thee! Fiend of the regions of darkness, it was thou who offered me the book to sign. Away! begone! tempt me no more, for, by the grace of Heaven, I defy you! I will not sign!" At this moment, the horse at the cart, seeing an opening in the road, dashed on to the village, leaving the horseman gazing in mute wonder after them. His white face wore a puzzled and pained look. He turned his horse's head into another path, saying: "It has been some years since I was here, and yet, if I mistake not, this is surely the path that leads to her house." Thirty minutes later, the same horseman drew rein in front of the widow Stevens' cottage and, dismounting, tied his horse to a small tree and approached the house. A light was shining through the window, and the whirr of the wheel told that the industrious widow was at her evening work. He rapped at the door and was bidden enter. On entering, he discovered that three persons occupied the cottage--the widow, her son and a beautiful, sunny-haired maiden. The latter started up at his appearance, crying: "Father! father!" and, leaping forward, threw her arms about his neck. The new-comer looked in amazement upon the girl, but made no answer. "Father, father, why don't you speak?" "There is some mistake!" he began. "Are you not my father?" "I never saw you before, little maid." Then Cora started back and gave the stranger a curious glance. He looked exactly like her father, save that he was dressed almost wholly in buckskin, and had a wild, forest-like appearance. Then, as she scrutinized him more closely, she perceived a slight scar on his left cheek. This was not on her father's face. "You are not my father; but you are very like him," she said. "I am not your father, little maid. I came to thank these people for their kindness to me a few years ago." "Are you he whom I found by the brook, wounded and dying?" asked Charles. "I am." "Your mysterious disappearance occasioned much comment." Before the stranger could frame an answer, the door was again thrown open, and this time it was Cora's father, in reality, who entered the house. She sprang to him, saying: "Father, I see now there is a difference between you and him!" For the first time, George Waters saw the stranger. As their eyes met, each started, gazed at the other a moment, as if to be assured he was right, and then George Waters cried: "Harry!" "George!" A dramatic episode, such as is so often acted upon the stage, or described in novels, followed, and, by degrees, the small audience caught from words dropped by the men, that they were brothers, who had long been separated, and had been searching for each other. When the excitement attending the discovery had in a measure subsided, the brothers walked down toward the spring, where, seating themselves on a moss-grown stone, George Waters told his brother of joining Monmouth's army, of being arrested and sold as a slave in Virginia, and of his escape and long perilous flight to New England. "Where have you been since you were here, Harry?" "I was a captive among the Indians for a few months, was liberated by some French Jesuits and went to France and thence to England, hoping to see you. I was several weeks at our old home near Stockton. Then I came back to America and have been in New York trading in furs." A silence of several moments followed. George, whose soul seemed stirred with some deep emotions, asked: "Harry, while in England, in Stockton, did you see her?" Harry knew to whom he referred, and he answered: "No." "Where is she?" "I know not." "Do you know whether she be living or dead?" "I do not." "God grant that she be dead!" At this moment, Cora, who had followed behind them and overheard their strange words, came forward and asked: "Father, what do you mean?" "Nothing, child. There, let us return to the house, for it is growing late." Then, as they walked up the gentle slope to the cabin of the widow, the maiden repeated to herself: "But he does mean something!" CHAPTER VIII. MOVING ONWARD. Laws formed to harmonize contrarious creeds, And heal the wounds through which a nation bleeds; Laws mild, impartial, tolerant and fixed, A bond of union for a people mixed; Such as good Calvert framed for Baltimore, And Penn the Numa of th' Atlantic shore. The Stevens family were so intimately related to their country, that the history of one is the history of the other. Philip Stevens, or Estevan, had located in the south and left behind a numerous progeny, while his brother Mathew, who came over in the _Mayflower_, had left an equally large family in New England. Their descendants began to push out into the frontier colonies, those in the south going as far north as Pennsylvania, and those in the east pushing out westward to New York and New Jersey. The family were lovers of freedom, and, wherever a struggle has been made on American soil for liberty, one of these descendants of the youth who landed on American soil with Columbus, in 1492, has been found. They disliked Andros, and the members of this now extensive and widely scattered family were in sackcloth and ashes, so to speak, when King James, in 1688, gave Andros a vice-regal commission to rule New York and all New England. When the viceroy journeyed from Boston to New York City, early in August the same year, George Stevens, a cousin of Charles, accompanied him, and saw Andros received by Colonel Bayard's regiment of foot and horse, who was entertained by the loyal aristocrat. In the midst of the rejoicings, the news came that the queen, the second wife of James, had been blessed with a son, who became heir to the throne. The event was celebrated the same evening by bonfires in the streets and a feast at the city hall. At the latter, Major Van Cortlandt became so hilarious, that he made a burnt sacrifice to his loyalty of his hat and periwig, waving the burning victims over the banquet table on the point of his straight sword. Princess Mary, the eldest daughter of King James, had married the Prince of Orange, and this new birth in the royal family was a disappointment to the Dutch inhabitants of New York, as well as the Protestant republicans, who had begun to hope that William and Mary would succeed James to the throne of England. This event intensified the general discontent, because of the consolidation of New York with New England and the abridgment of their rights, and the people were ready to rebel at almost any moment, especially as Andros had rendered himself particularly obnoxious. Like the other colonies, Maryland was shaken by the revolution in England, in 1688, and, for a while, experienced deep sorrows. The democratic ideas, which, for several years, had been spreading over the provinces, could not reconcile the rule of a lord proprietor with the true principles of republicanism. Even when Charles Calvert went to England after the death of his father, signs of political discontent were conspicuous in Maryland. In 1678, the general assembly, influenced by the popular feeling, established the right of suffrage--"casting of a vote for rulers"--on a broad basis. On the return of Charles, in 1681, he annulled this act and, by an arbitrary ordinance, resisted the right of freemen owning fifty acres of land, or personal property of the value of forty pounds sterling. This produced great disquietude, and Ex-Governor Fendall planned an insurrection for the purpose of abolishing the proprietorship and establishing an independent republican government. The king was induced to issue orders that all the offices of the government in Maryland should be filled by Protestants alone; and so, again, the Roman Catholics were deprived of their political rights. Lord Baltimore went to England again, in 1684, leaving the government of his province in charge of several deputies under the nominal governorship of his infant son. There he found his rights in great peril; but before the matter could be brought to a direct issue by the operation of a writ of _quo warranto_, King James was driven from the throne, and Protestant William and Mary ascended it. Lord Baltimore immediately acquiesced in the political change. On account of his instructions to his deputies to proclaim the new monarchs being delayed in their transmission, he was charged with hesitancy; and a restless spirit named Coode, an associate of Fendall in his insurrectionary movements--"a man of loose morals and blasphemous speech"--excited the people by the cry of "a popish plot!" He was the author of a false story put in circulation, that the local magistrates in Maryland and the Roman Catholics there had engaged with the Indians in a plot for the destruction of the Protestants in the province. An actual league at that time between the French and the Jesuit missionaries with the savages on the New England frontiers for the destruction of the English colonies in the east seemed to give color to the story, which created great excitement. The old feud burned intensely. The Protestants formed an armed association led by Coode. They marched to the Maryland capital, took possession of the records and assumed the functions of a provisional government, in May, 1689. In the following August they met in convention, when they prepared and sent to the new sovereigns a report of their proceedings, and a series of absurd and false accusations against Lord Baltimore. In conclusion, they requested the monarchs to depose Lord Baltimore by making Maryland a royal province and taking it under the protection of the crown. William and Mary listened favorably to the request and, moved by the false representations, complied with it. Coode was ordered to administer the government in the name of the king. He ruled with the spirit of a petty tyrant, until the people of every religious and political creed were heartily disgusted with him, and, in 1692, he was supplanted by Sir Lionel Copley, whom the king sent to be governor of Maryland. On the arrival of the new governor, in the spring of 1692, he summoned a general assembly, to meet at St. Mary's in May. New laws abolishing religious toleration were instituted. The church of England was made the state church for Maryland, to be supported by a tax on the whole people. "Thus," says McMahan, "was introduced, for the first time in Maryland, a church establishment, sustained by law and fed by general taxation." Other laws oppressive in their bearings upon those opposed in religious views to the dominant party were enacted, some of which remained in force until the glorious emancipation day, in the summer of 1776, gave freedom to our nation. Partly in order to better accommodate the people of Maryland, but more for the purpose of punishing the adherents of Lord Baltimore, who constituted a greater proportion of the population of St. Mary's, the seat of government was moved from there to Anne Arundel, a town on the shore of the Chesapeake, early in 1694, and there a general assembly was convened in February. The following year, the name of the place was changed by authority to Annapolis, and the naval station of the province was established there. Annapolis has, ever since, continued to be the capital of Maryland, while St. Mary's, dependent for its existence upon its being the capital of the province, speedily sunk into ruins. Lord Baltimore never recovered his proprietary rights. Neither did he return to America, but died in England in the year 1714, at the age of eighty-five years. He was succeeded by his son Benedict Leonard Calvert. That son had abandoned the faith of his father and, in the spring of 1715, died, when his title to the province devolved upon his infant son Charles, who, with his brothers and sisters, had been educated as Protestants. Charles Calvert, Lord Baltimore and William Penn were contemporaries, and were equally conspicuous for their beneficent disposition. They are regarded as the best of all the proprietors, who owned charted domains in America. Rufus Stevens, an uncle of Charles Stevens, the youth of Salem, was living in New Jersey, when Lord Berkeley, disgusted by the losses and annoyances which the ownership of the colony brought upon him, sold his interests in the province to John Fenwick and Edward Byllinge, English Friends, or Quakers, for the sum of five thousand dollars. The tract thus disposed of was in the western part of the province. With some emigrants, mostly of the society of Friends, Fenwick sailed for his new possessions. They entered at a spot not far from the Delaware River, which they named Salem, on account of the peaceful aspect of the country and the surrounding Indians. There, with the peculiar gravity of the sect, Fenwick and his two daughters, thirteen men (most of them heads of families) and one woman, the wife of one of the emigrants, sat in silent worship, according to their custom, under the shadow of a great tree, with covered heads and quiet bodies, on the ensuing "First Day" after their arrival. Then they built log cabins for shelter, and so began a new life in the wilds of New Jersey. The principal proprietor was Byllinge; but soon after the departure of Fenwick, heavy losses in trade made him a bankrupt, and his interest in New Jersey was first assigned to William Penn and others for the benefit of his creditors, and was afterward sold to them. These purchasers and others who became associated with them, unwilling to maintain a political union with other parties, bargained with Carteret for a division of the province. This was done in July, 1676, Carteret retaining the eastern part of the province, and the new purchasers holding the western part. From that time, until they were united and became a royal province in 1702, these divisions were known as East and West Jersey. Even to this day, we frequently hear the expression, "The Jerseys," used. Most of the settlers of West Jersey were Friends, and the proprietors gave them a remarkably liberal constitution of government, entitled: "The concessions and agreements of the proprietors, freeholders and inhabitants of the province of West Jersey in America." The following year (1677), more than four hundred Friends came from England and settled below the Raritan. Andros required them to acknowledge his authority as the representative of the Duke of York. This they refused to do, and the matter was referred to the eminent crown-lawyer and oriental scholar, Sir William Jones, for adjudication. Sir William decided against the claims of the duke, who submitted to the decision, released both provinces from allegiance to him, and the Jerseys became independent of foreign control. The first popular assembly in West Jersey met at Salem, in November, 1681, and adopted a code of laws for the government of the people. One of these laws provided that in all criminal cases, excepting treason, murder and theft, the aggrieved party should have power to pardon the offender. In the year 1679, Carteret died, and the trustees of his American estates offered East Jersey for sale. It was bought, in 1682, by William Penn and others, among them the earl of Perth, the friend of Robert Barclay, whom the proprietors appointed governor for life. Barclay was an eminent young Friend, whose writings were held in high estimation by his own sect, especially his "Apology for the true Christian Divinity, as the same is held forth and practised by the people called in scorn Quakers," and his "Treatise on Christian Discipline." The purchase of these lands was not made in the interest of either religion or liberty, but as a speculation. Barclay governed the province by deputies until 1690. England and Scotland contributed a large number of Friends to East Jersey, and other immigrants flocked from Long Island, to find repose and peace; but repose is not to be found by lovers of freedom, under royal rule, and they were forcibly impressed with the significance of the injunction, "Put not your trust in princes," for James the king failed to keep the rosy promises of James the duke, and they were forced to submit to the tyranny of Andros. When that detested viceroy was expelled from the country, in 1689, the Jerseys were left without a regular civil government, and so they remained for several years. Wearied with contentions, with the people of the provinces and with the government at home, and annoyed by losses in unprofitable speculations, the proprietors of the Jerseys surrendered them to the crown, in 1702, when Queen Anne was the reigning British monarch. The government of that domain was then confided to Sir Edward Hyde (Lord Cornbury), whose instructions constituted the supreme law of the land. He was then governor of New York and possessed almost absolute legislative and executive control within the jurisdiction of his authority. In New Jersey the people had no voice in the judiciary or the making and executing of laws other than recommendatory. All but Roman Catholics were granted liberty of conscience; but the bigoted governor always showed conspicuous favors to the members of the Church of England. The governor was dishonest and a libertine, and under his rule the people of New Jersey were little better than slaves. Printing, except by royal permission, was prohibited in the province, and the traffic in negro slaves was especially encouraged. New Jersey remained a dependency of New York, yet with a distinct legislative assembly of its own, until the year 1738, when it was made an independent colony, and it so remained until the Revolutionary War, when it became a separate State. After the province gained its freedom from New York, Mr. Morris was commissioned its governor. He was the son of an officer in Cromwell's army, who, about the year 1672, settled on a farm of three thousand acres on the Harlem River, New York, which was named Morrisania. Last of the royal governors of New Jersey was William Franklin, son of Dr. Benjamin Franklin, who was appointed in 1763, and closed his official career in the summer of 1776, when he was deposed by the continental congress and sent under guard to Connecticut. There he was released on parole and went to England, where he died in 1813. One of the Stevens family having served as governor of North Carolinia, it was only natural that other members of the southern branch of that rapidly increasing family in the south should push out into the Carolinias and take part in the early settlement of these colonies. After the failure of the schemes of Loche and Cooper to form "Fundamental Constitutions," a splendid government, in 1669, was completed. The "constitutions" were signed in March, 1670, and were highly lauded in England, as forming the wisest scheme for human government ever devised. Monk, Duke of Albemarle, was created palatine or viceroy for the new empire, who was to display the state parade of his office, with landgraves, barons, lords of manor and heraldry, among the scattered settlers in pine forests, living in log cabins with the Indians. Never was a more ludicrous idea entertained with any degree of seriousness; yet, so far as the proprietors were concerned, this splendid government was established; but the simple settlers had something to say; and when the governor of the Albemarle county colony attempted to introduce the new government, they said, "No." They had a form of government of their own, far better adapted to their social circumstances than the one sent from England, and they resolved to adhere to it. All attempts to enforce obedience to the new form of government, all oppressive taxation imposed upon the people, and especially the commercial restrictions authorized by the English navigation laws, produced wide-spread discontent. Most particularly was this fostered by refugees from Virginia, who had been engaged in Bacon's rebellion, and who sought personal safety among the people below the Roanoke. These refugees, smarting under the lash of tyranny, scattered broadcast over the generous soil the germinal ideas of popular freedom, and successful oppression was made difficult, if not impossible. At this period, North Carolinia did not contain four thousand inhabitants. They carried on a small trade in tobacco, maize and fat cattle with the merchants of New England. This sort of smuggling was perhaps excusable, when we consider the grinding navigation laws of the monopolists. The little vessels, trading between North Carolinia and New England, brought many articles to the southern colonies, which they were incapable of producing. English cupidity envied them their small prosperity, and the navigation laws of 1672 were put in force. An agent of the government appeared, who demanded a penny for every pound of tobacco sent to New England. The colonists resisted the levy and the tax-gatherer became rude and had frequent collisions with the people. On one occasion, he went to the home of Francisco Stevens, a planter, who had shipped some tobacco to a relative in Boston, and demanded a steer in payment for the shipment. The tax-gatherer attempted to drive away the ox, when the sturdy wife assailed him with her mop-stick and drove him from the premises. [Illustration: The sturdy wife assailed him with her mop-stick and drove him away.] The exasperated people finally, in December, 1677, seized the public funds and imprisoned the governor and six of his councillors, called a new representative assembly and appointed a chief magistrate and judge. Then, for two years, the colonists were permitted to conduct the affairs of their government without any foreign control. Meanwhile, John Culpepper, their leader, whom the royalists denounced as an "ill man, who merited hanging for endeavoring to set the people to plunder the rich," conscious of his integrity, went boldly to England to plead the cause of the colony. While in the act of re-embarking for America, he was arrested, tried for treason and honorably acquitted. Returning to North Carolinia, he was appointed surveyor-general of the province, and, in 1680, laid out the city of Charleston in South Carolinia. Until the arrival of Seth Sothel as governor, North Carolinia enjoyed a period of repose. He had purchased a share in the provinces of Clarendon, and was sent to administer the government. On his voyage, he was captured by Algerine pirates, but, escaping them, reached North Carolinia, in 1683. It has been said of this avaricious, extortionate and cruel statesman, that "the dark shades of his character were not relieved by a single virtue." His advent disturbed the public tranquillity. He plundered the people, cheated the proprietors, and on all occasions seems to have prostituted his delegated power to purposes of private gain. About six weeks of his misrule were all the independent colonists could stand. Then the people rose in rebellion, seized the governor, and were about to send him to England to answer their accusations before the proprietors, when he asked to be tried by the colonial assembly. It is asserted by historians of note, that that body was more merciful than his associates in England would have been, for they found him guilty and sentenced him to only one year's punishment and perpetual disqualification for the office of governor. Sothel withdrew to the southern colony, and was succeeded by Philip Ludwell, an energetic, honest man, whose wisdom and sense of justice soon restored order and good feeling in the colony. He was succeeded by John Archdale, a Quaker, who, in 1695, came as governor of the two colonies. His administration was a blessing. The people over whom he ruled were as free in their opinions and actions as the air they breathed. Legal or moral restraints were few; yet the gentle-minded people were enemies to violence or crime. They were widely scattered, with not a city or town and scarce a hamlet within their sylvan domain. The only roads were bridle paths from house to house, and these were indicated by notches cut in trees--"blazed roads." There was not a settled minister in the colony until 1703. The southern, or Carteret County Colony was, meanwhile, steadily moving along in population and wealth. The settlers, perceiving the fatal objections to the "Fundamental Constitutions" as a plan of government for their colony, did not attempt conforming thereto, but established a more simple government adapted to their conditions. Under it, the first legislative assembly of South Carolinia convened, in the spring of 1672, at the place on the Ashley River where the colony was first seated. In that body, jarring political, social and theological interests and opinions produced passionate debates and violent discord. South Carolinia has ever been a seething political caldron, and, even in that early date, there was a proprietary party and a people's party, a high church party and a dissenters' party, each bigoted and resolute. At times, the debates were so heated and earnest, that they seemed on the eve of plunging the colony into civil war. The savages had commenced plundering the frontier, and all factions of the whites were forced to unite against this common enemy. The bold frontiersman, with his trusty rifle, was often unable to defend his home. His cattle were run away or slaughtered before his very eyes. Old Town was the first point selected for the capital; but Charleston was finally laid out on Oyster Point, and the seat of government was removed to this city, where the second assembly met, in 1682. Immigrants flowed in with a full and continuous stream. Families came from Ireland, Scotland and Holland, and when the edict at Nantes, which secured toleration to Protestants in France, was revoked, a large number of Huguenots fled from their country, and many sought an asylum in the Carolinias. The traditionary hatred of the English for the French was shown at this time. For fully ten years these French refugees were deprived the privilege of citizenship in the land of their adoption. A colony of Scotch Presbyterians, numbering ten families, was located at Port Royal, South Carolinia, in 1682, and four years later was attacked and dispersed by the Spaniards, who claimed Port Royal as a dependency of St. Augustine. The persecution of the Huguenots in France drove many to seek homes in the colonies, despite English hatred to them. The struggles of South Carolinia with the Indians, and the attempted oppression of the home government is but a repetition of the experience of the other colonies, until the good John Archdale came as governor of the Carolinias. His administration was short, but highly beneficial. He healed dissensions, established equitable laws, in the spirit of a true Christian example of toleration and humanity. He cultivated friendly intercourse with the Indians and the Spaniards at St. Augustine, so that his administration was marked as a season of peace, prosperity and happiness. CHAPTER IX. CHARLES AND CORA. We wandered to the pine forest, That skirts the ocean foam. The lightest wind was in its nest, The tempest in its home. The whispering waves were half asleep The clouds were gone to play, And on the bosom of the deep The smile of heaven lay. --Shelley. In a thousand artless ways, Cora, despite the strange mystery which seemed to envelop her, won her way to the hearts of all who knew her. Goody Nurse, who was a frequent caller at the home of the widow Stevens, was loud in her praises of the maiden, who had budded into womanhood. Charles found her growing more shy, as she became more mature and more beautiful; but as she grew more reserved, her power over him became greater, until, though unconscious of it, she had made him her slave. One day he met her in one of her short rambles about the wood near the house. Her eyes were on the ground, and her face was so sad that it seemed to touch his heart. He went toward her, and she started from her painful reverie and looked as if she would fly. "Cora, it is I, are you afraid of me?" he asked. "No." Then he went to her side and asked: "Why are you so sad to-day?" "Do I seem sad?" "You look it." "It is because of the good pastor's hatred of me. You were not at Church last Lord's day?" "No; I was in Boston." "Hath not your mother told you of it?" "She told me nothing." Her sad eyes seemed to swim in tears, and Charles entreated her to tell him what Mr. Parris had said of her. Without answering his question, she asked: "What do you think of Goody Nurse and her sisters, Goody Cloyse and Goody Easty?" "They are very excellent women," Charles answered, "I would that we had more like them." "Is it wrong for a young maid such as I to keep their company?" "Assuredly not." Charles saw that Cora had something to tell, and he begged her to come to a large moss-covered log, on which they seated themselves, and then he asked: "Cora, who said it was wrong?" "Mr. Parris." "When?" "On last Lord's day he did upbraid us as the emissaries of the Devil, and Goody Nurse avowed if the minister did not cease to upbraid her in church, she would absent herself." "That would be a violation of law. All are compelled to attend worship on Lord's day." She was silent for several moments and then remarked: "Can a law compel one to go where she is maligned and all the calumnies hate can invent heaped upon her head?" "By the laws of the colony, all must attend church on Lord's day." The laws of the Puritans were exacting, and ministers of the character of Mr. Parris took advantage of them. "It is sad," sighed Cora. "What did Mr. Parris say of you on last Lord's day, Cora?" "I cannot recall all that he said. Even his text I have forgotten, for, as he was announcing it, Abigail Williams was seized with a grievous fit, and did cry out that Goody Nurse was pinching her. When she became quiet, and the pastor again announced his text, Abigail interrupted him with: 'It is not a doctrinal text, and it is too long.' He said that when the children of God went to worship, Satan came also. Then he declared that the Devil was in the church at that moment, and he looked at Goody Nurse and me, who sat near each other in the church. 'Do any of you doubt that the imps of darkness are in your presence? Behold how they associate the one with the other. Those who afflict and persecute the children of the righteous, and the unholy offspring of a player!' He grew in a towering passion and cried out so against me, that all eyes were turned upon me, and I bowed my head. No sooner had I done so, than he called on all to witness how Satan rebuked dared not show his face in the house of God. If I but looked on him to deny his charges he called it the brazen impudence of a child of darkness. All through his sermon, I sat listening to reproof for what I cannot help, or the frequent allusions to the familiar spirits of Goody Nurse." Tears quietly stole from the sad eyes and trickled down the cheeks of the maiden. He sought to console her and, to change her mind to a more cheerful subject, asked: "Where is your father?" "Alas, I know not, save that he has gone with his brother Harry Waters to Canada to procure furs." "Cora, what strange mystery surrounds your life?" "I know not." "Don't you remember aught of your mother?" "No; I never saw her. My earliest recollections are of the theatre, where a nurse cared for me in the greenroom, while my father performed on the stage." "Does he never talk of her?" "My mother?" "Yes." "He never mentions her name." "Have you never asked him about her?" "Yes." "What answer does he make?" "He says I may learn all in due time." To Charles Stevens, it was quite evident that Cora's father was purposely putting off some important revelation. He gazed upon her fair young face and in it could see little or no resemblance to her father. Then a suspicion entered his mind, that she might not after all be the child of George Waters. Though mysterious, Cora tried to conceal nothing; her manner and conversation were frank and open. "Your father was captured at the battle of Sedgemore, was he not?" "Yes; he was impressed into the army of Monmouth. My father had no interest in either army. What were their quarrels to him? Part of the time he was in the Netherlands, and a part of the time in France, Scotland or Wales. I don't think at any time he knew much of England's trouble. We were roving all the time and thought little of political questions. When he was arrested and forced into Monmouth's army, at Bridgewater, he asked whose army it was." "And you followed him?" "I followed at a distance and from a lofty hill watched the long, hard struggle. Oh, such a scene as it was! Ranks of cavalry and ranks of infantry dashing at each other. Through the great volumes of smoke and dust, I watched the regiment to which my father had been attached. I saw it in the thickest of the fight and, kneeling by a stone fence, prayed God to spare him. God answered my prayer, for he was spared. When I saw Monmouth's army retreating and the ruthless butchers of the king in pursuit, I ran down the lane, weeping and wringing my hands, expecting to find his dead body. I was very young then; but the scene has been indelibly stamped on my memory. "As I was running down the hill, I met him, so covered with dust and blackened with gunpowder, that at first I knew him not. He knew me, and, as I swooned at his feet, he carried me across a field to a road-side inn, where I recovered, and we were about to resume our flight, when the king's soldiers surrounded the house. One of the officers cocked his pistol to shoot my father and would have done so, had I not clung to his neck and presented my body as a shield between him and the trooper's bullet. "'Spare him for the hangman,' suggested another. "He was spared, and at the trial it appeared that he held no commission in the rebel's army, so he was condemned to ten years' penal servitude in the colonies, and was sent to Virginia, whither I went, also. Of our escape, through the kindness and courage of your relative in Virginia, you already know." "Is your father going to take you away?" "Yes; he says that my persecution at Salem will cease as soon as he can prepare a home for me." "Where?" "In Maine." "Do you want to go away, Cora?" She was silent for a long while, in fact, so long was she silent that he asked the question again before she answered. Then, fixing her beautiful eyes, with a startled expression, on him, she answered: "No, no! I would not go away, if I could remain in peace; but our persecutions seem endless. My father is a good man. Although he was a player, he was ever the kindest of fathers, and taught me only the purest religious sentiments, yet Mr. Parris calls him the agent of the devil." Charles shudderingly responded: "Cora, I fear we are on the verge of a fearful upheaval of ignorance and superstition. Religion, our greatest blessing, perverted, will become our greatest curse. I cannot understand it, Cora; but we are on the brink of some terrible volcano, which will destroy many, I fear." That Charles Stevens was no false prophet, subsequent history has fully proven. Coming events seemed to cast their dark shadows before. In New England, there had been a preparation for this stage in the temper with which the adventurers had arrived in the country, and the influences which at once operated upon them. Their politics and religion were gloomy and severe. Those who were not soured with the world were sad, and, it should be remembered, they fully believed that Satan and his powers were abroad and must be contended with daily and hourly and in every transaction of life. There was little in their new home to cheer them; for the gloomy and unexplored forests shrouded the entire land beyond the barren seashore. Their special enemy, the Indian, always on the alert in some mysterious glade to take advantage of them, was not, in their view, a simple savage. Their clergy, ignorant and fanatic as they were zealous, assured them that the Indians were worshippers and agents of Satan; and it is difficult to estimate the effect of this belief on the minds and tempers of those who were thinking of the Indians at every turn of daily life. Indian hatred has ever been mingled with ferocity and fanaticism quite inconsistent with mild precepts of Jesus Christ. This passion, kindled by the first demonstration of hostility on the part of the Massachusetts red man, grew and spread incessantly under the painful early experience of colonial life, and has been only intensified by time. In turn, every man had to be scout by day and night, in the swamp and in the forest, and every woman had to be on the watch in her husband's absence to save her babes from murderers and kidnappers. Whatever else their desires might be, even to supply their commonest needs, the citizens had first to station themselves within hail of each other all day, and at night to drive in their cattle among the dwellings and keep watch by turns. Even on Sundays, patrols were appointed to look to the public safety while the citizens were at church. Mothers carried their babes to the meeting-house in preference to remaining at home in the absence of husbands and neighbors. The Sabbath patrol was not only for the purpose of looking for Indians, but to mark the absentees from worship, note what they were doing, and give information accordingly to the authorities. These patrols were chosen from the leading men of the community--the most active, vigilant and sensible--and one can easily perceive that much ill-will might have accumulated in the hearts of those whom they saw fit to report. Such ill-will had its day of triumph when the Salem tragedy reached its climax. Levity, mirth and joy were condemned by the Puritans, and nearly all amusements were discarded. The merry whistle of the lad was ungodly in their eyes, and Charles Stevens had come in for his share of the reproof because God had given him a light heart. Life to them was sombre, and, usually, sombre lives lead to bloodshed, crime and fanaticism. Charles sought to instil some of his joy into the sad life of the unfortunate maid. To him the sun shone brightly, the flowers bloomed radiantly, and the birds sang sweetly for the pleasure of man. Life was earnest, but not austere, and religion did not demand gloom. "Have no care for what Mr. Parris may say," he said. "His congregation is divided against him, and he cannot harm you." "Only a little longer, just a little longer, and I will be gone where they can torment me no more," answered Cora. "In the forests of Maine, I will be hidden from the eyes of my enemies and be alone with God." They rose and wandered down the path on either side of which the densest of thickets grew. Both were lost in thought. A shadow had come over the face of Charles Stevens the moment Cora spoke of going away. He had never admitted even to himself that he loved her; yet, ever since that stormy night when he volunteered to brave the tempest and conducted her home, he had been strangely impressed with Cora. The mystery of her early life was somewhat repugnant to one of his plain, outspoken nature; yet, with all that, he was forcibly impressed by her sweet, pure and sad disposition. They were wandering pensively hand in hand toward his mother's home, when a voice called to them from across the brook. The sound of the voice broke the spell, and, looking up, he saw Sarah Williams coming toward them. "Hold, will you, Charles Stevens, until I speak to the one who accompanies you." The young widow was greatly excited, and her voice trembled with emotion. "Who is that woman?" asked Cora, trembling with agitation. "Sarah Williams." "I have seen her." "Where?" "At church. She was the one who upbraided Goody Nurse for being a witch." Cora was greatly agitated, as she saw Sarah Williams, with demoniacal fury, hastening toward her. Surely she would do her no injury, for Cora was not conscious of ever having given her offence. "Have no fears, Cora, she will not harm you. I trow it is some commonplace matter of which she would speak." Thus assured, she had almost ceased to dread the approach of the woman, when Sarah Williams suddenly cried, in a voice trembling with fury: "Cora Waters, have you no sense of shame? Are you wholly given up to the evil one?" "What mean you?" Cora asked. "Why do you torment me?" "I do not, knowingly." "False tool of Satan! Did not your shape come at me last night?" "Assuredly not." "Oh woman, woman! why will you speak so falsely? I saw you." "When?" "Last night, as I lay in my bed, you came and choked me, because I would not sign the little red book which you carried in your hand." Filled with wonder, Charles Stevens turned his eyes upon Cora, whose face expressed blank amazement, and asked: "What does this mean?" "I take God to be my witness, that I know nothing of it, no more than the child unborn," she answered. "Woe is the evil one, who speaks falsely when accused!" cried the enraged Sarah Williams. Then she closed her fist and made an effort to strike Cora, who, with a scream, shrunk from her. "Hold, Sarah Williams! Don't judge hastily, or you may judge wrongly." "Go to! hold your peace, Charles Stevens, for, verily, I know whereof I speak, when I charge that the shape of Cora Waters does grievously torment me." "Are you mad?" "No." "Then of what do you accuse her?" "She is a witch." At this awful accusation both Charles and Cora shrunk back in dismay, and for a moment neither could speak; but Sarah Williams was not silent. She continued upbraiding the unfortunate girl, heaping charge upon charge on her innocent head, until Cora felt as if she needs must sink beneath the load. "You have bewitched my cows; my sheep and swine die mysteriously. Your form is seen oft at night riding through the air. My poultry die strangely and mysteriously, and my dog has fits. Even my poor cat hath fallen under the evil spell which you cast on all about me. Alas, Cora Waters, you are bold and bad. Charles Stevens, beware how you are seen about her, lest the wrath that will fall upon her head involve you in ruin." Cora Waters, leaning against a tree, covered her face with her hands and murmured: "Oh, God! wilt thou save me from the wrath of these misguided people?" "See how she blasphemes! For a witch to call on the name of God is blasphemy of the very worst kind. Away, witch!" and Sarah stamped her foot in violence upon the ground. "Stay, Cora!" Charles interposed, very calmly. Then he turned upon Sarah Williams, and added: "You accuse her falsely, Sarah. Beware how you charge her of what the law makes a crime, or you may have to answer in a court for slander." "Charles Stevens, beware how you defend the being at your side. She is an imp of darkness, and a day is coming when such will not be permitted to run at large. Beware! _beware!_ BEWARE!" and with the last command amounting almost to a shriek, she turned about and ran away. Long Charles Stevens stood gazing after the retreating woman. The gentle breeze, stirring the leaves of the sweet-scented forest, bore pleasant odors to them, the birds sang their sweet peaceful songs, while a squirrel, with a nut in its paws, skipped nimbly over the leaves near and, pausing, reared upon its hind legs and looked at them from its bright little eyes, while the flowers nodded their gaudy little heads as if to invite every one to be glad; but Charles and Cora saw not all these beauties of nature. She stood leaning against the friendly trunk of a giant oak, and turned her eyes on him with a look of helpless appeal and agony. He was so dazed by the bold accusation, that he could not speak for several seconds. She was first to regain her speech. "She, too, is my enemy." "Yes," he answered. "I have no friend----" she began. "Don't say that, Cora. While mother and I live, you have two friends," he interrupted. "Yes--yes; I had not forgotten you; but you may be powerless to aid me. I learned that they were going to arrest and try some of the accused people for witches. It is terrible," she added with a shudder. "In England they burn witches at the stake. My father saw one thus roasted. He said it did touch him with tenderness to see the gallant way she met her fate--cursing and reviling the hooting mob gathered about her, whilst the angry flames, leaping upward, licked her face, caught her locks, crackling about her old gray head. I trow it was a sorry sight, and God be praised, I never saw such a one!" "You never will, Cora, for those days are passed. We live in a more enlightened and humane age. People are not burned to death now, as they used to be. We are safe under the shelter of humane and wise laws." Charles was mistaken. Human laws have never been perfect or just, and mankind will never be safe while laws are interpreted by partial magistrates. Laws are never perfect, for, were they, continual amendments would be unnecessary. On their way home, Charles and Cora were compelled to pass the Salem church. As they did so, they met Mr. Parris face to face, as he was coming out of the sanctuary whither he had gone to pray. He paused near the door and, fixing his large gray eyes on the unfortunate maid, glared at her much as an angry lion might gaze on the object of its hatred; then he turned away on his heel with something about the children of darkness profaning the house of the Lord. Cora shuddered as long as he was in sight, and when he had disappeared, she said: "Surely, he is a bad man!" They resumed their walk to the house. Though neither spoke, they went slowly, each buried in thought. The gentle zephyrs, the frisking squirrels, the nodding flowers, the singing birds, were all unheeded by them. When the home was reached, he found his mother standing in the door, her face almost deathly white. Though she said nothing, he knew she was greatly disturbed. Her wheel stood idle, the great heap of wool rolls lying unspun at the side of it. She smiled faintly and, as Cora passed into the little room set apart for her, turned her eyes anxiously to her son. "Mother, has any one been here since we left?" he asked. "Yes." "Was it Mr. Parris?" "It was." "We saw him come out of the church as we passed." "He was here but a moment since." Then Charles felt that something had been said to his mother to occasion alarm, and he asked her what it was. "He advised me to warn you to flee from the wrath to come. He said you would be involved in ruin ere you knew it, if you continued in your present course." "What did he mean?" "He referred to her," and Mrs. Stevens significantly nodded toward the apartment in which Cora was. Charles had expected this answer. He went slowly to the door and looked down the road to see if the pastor was still in sight; but he was not. Only the broad, well-beaten thoroughfare, with the great, old trees standing on either side, and the blue sea beyond the hill, with the village in the valley were visible. The youth's heart was full of bitterness, and the manner in which his mother's words were spoken was not calculated to allay the storm within his breast. Though her words did not say so, her manner indicated that she shared the opinions of Mr. Parris. Turning from the door, Charles went toward her and said: "Mother, whatever he said of her is false. I know he hates Cora, that he would make her one of the emissaries of Satan; but his charges are false. You know--you must know that she is a pure, good girl." "I do know it," she answered, her face still anxious and pale. "The accusation is false. I know it is false; yet he threatens." "Whom does he threaten?" "You." Charles laughed, as only a brave lad can laugh at danger. Why need he fear Mr. Parris? Charles was young and inexperienced. He knew not the age in which he lived, and little did he dream of the power which Mr. Parris, as pastor of the church, could wield over the public. The pulpit controlled judges and juries, law-makers and governors in that day, and when an evil-disposed person like Mr. Parris became pastor of a congregation, he could wield a terrible influence. "Mother, how can he injure me?" Charles asked. "In more ways than one." "What are they?" "I don't know, Charles; but I know--I feel that something terrible is about to happen. Our people will suffer from Mr. Parris--especially all who oppose his ministry." "I oppose his ministry, and I have no fear of him. All he can do is to wound the feelings of that poor girl; but she will go away soon, beyond reach of his calumny." "Heaven grant she may, and right soon, too." As Charles was about to leave the house, his mother asked: "Have you heard that Adelpha Leisler from New York is coming?" "Adelpha Leisler! No----" He started, half in joy and half in regret. "She is. Surely, you have not forgotten her." "No, mother. I will never forget the pretty maid." "Who, you said in your boyhood, was one day to be your wife." "Truly, I did. I have heard that Adelpha hath kept the promise of early childhood to make a beautiful woman. When will she come?" "It is said she will be here before next Lord's Day." The expression of joy uttered in words, as well as the glow which lighted up his countenance, was seen by the white-faced young woman in the next apartment. Cora was not an intentional eavesdropper. Her door had been left accidentally ajar, and when she heard the name Adelpha Leisler spoken, she started to her feet, moved by a strange impulse quite inexplicable to her. She had never heard the name Adelpha Leisler before, and yet she intuitively felt that the name had some terrible bearing on her destiny. With loud beating heart, lips parted and her whole being expressing pain, she crouched close to the door and listened. CHAPTER X. CHARLES AND MR. PARRIS. Night is the time for rest, How sweet when labors close, To gather round an aching breast The curtain of repose, Stretch the tired limbs, and lay the head Upon our own delightful bed. --Montgomery. Jealousy, for the first time, entered the heart of Cora Waters. Blessed is the being free from this curse. The green-eyed monster, unbidden, enters the heart and enthrones himself as ruler of the happiness of the individual over whom it assumes sway. She heard all that mother and son said, and then watched him as he went out. Then she closed the door of her apartment and retired to her bedroom. It was almost evening, and when Mrs. Stevens informed her that tea was ready, she feigned headache and asked to be excused. It was the heart rather than the head that ached. Charles Stevens was gathering in the herds as was the custom for the night, when he came rather suddenly upon John Louder, returning from the forest. "Ho, Charles Stevens, where were you last Lord's Day?" asked Louder. "Was I missed?" "You were, and I trow the patrol could not find you." "I was in Boston." "Do you know that Mr. Parris hath begun to cry out against some of the people?" "I have heard as much, and I think the pastor should be more careful, lest he will do an injustice." Louder shook his head and, seating himself on the green bank of a brooklet, answered: "Goody Nurse is a witch. She hath grievously tormented me on divers occasions and in divers ways. Fain would I believe her other but I cannot." "John Louder, you are a deceived and deluded man." "Nay, nay, Charles, you mock me. I have had her come and sit upon my chest and oppress me greatly with her torments. Have I not been turned into a beast and ridden through thorns and briars at night and awoke to find myself in bed?" Charles, laughing, answered: "It was the troubled dream from which you awoke." "Nay; I found the thorns and briars pricking my hands and legs." "Perchance you walked in your sleep." "Charles, why seek to deceive me in that way, when I know full well that what I tell you is surely truth? I see with my eyes, I hear with my ears, and I feel with my senses. Only night before last, I was ridden into a field where they partook of a witches' sacrament." "And what was it, pray?" asked Charles with a smile of incredulity. "The flesh and blood of a murdered victim." Charles laughed outright. "Nay, nay, Charles, you need not laugh," cried Louder, angrily. "She was there, too." "Who?" "The maid who hath lived at your house. The offspring of a vile player. Behold, I saw her partake of the sacrament." Charles Stevens' face alternately paled and flushed as he answered: "John Louder, you are the prince of liars, and beware how you repeat your falsehoods, or I shall crack your skull." Louder, who was a coward, as well as superstitious, had a wholesome dread of the stout youth. He sprung back a few paces and stammered: "No, no, I don't mean any harm. I--I am not saying anything against you." "John Louder, you are a notorious liar, and I warn you to be careful in the future how your vile tongue breathes calumny against innocent people. Begone!" Louder slowly rose and slunk away, and Charles Stevens returned home. The evening air fanned his heated brow, and he sought to cool his angry temper before he reached home. The silent stars watched the sullen youth who, pausing at the gate, gazed in his helpless misery on the broad-faced moon and murmured: "How will all this end?" It was his usual bedtime when Charles Stevens entered the house, and his face was calm as a summer sky over which a storm had never swept. His mother was still plying her wheel, and the heap of wool rolls had grown less and continued to diminish. She asked her son no questions. He sat down near the table, took up a book of psalms and proceeded to read. There was one in the next apartment who heard him enter. It was Cora, and, rising, she crouched near the door to listen. Perhaps they would say something more of Adelpha Leisler; but he did not mention her name again, and she almost hoped he cared nothing for her now, although he had confessed that in his boyhood he had looked upon her as his future wife. Almost every man selects his wife in his early boyhood; but the child lover seldom becomes the husband. The love of a play-mate, tender as it may be, is not the love of maturity. Cora strove to console herself with these thoughts; but there was another danger that would obtrude itself in her way. That was the knowledge that he had not seen Adelpha for years, and she had developed from a child to a beautiful woman. Long she sat near the door, feeling decidedly guilty at playing the part of an eavesdropper; but when Charles rose, closed his book and went to his room, and the mother put away her work, Cora rose and went to her bed. Despite her sorrow and mental worry, she had sweet dreams. Somebody, who was Charles, appeared to her in light, and she rose with the sun in her eyes, which at first produced the effect of a continuation of her dream. Her first thought on coming out of the dream was of a smiling nature, and she felt quite reassured. The dream had been so pleasant and sweet; life seemed so peaceful and full of hope; nature smiled so brightly on this holy morn, that she almost forgot the hot words of the pastor and her jealousy of the night before. She began hoping with all her strength, without knowing why, and suffered from a contraction of the heart. It was a bright day; but the sunbeam was still nearly horizontal, so she reasoned that it was quite early; but she thought she ought to rise in order to assist Charles' mother in her household duties. She would see Charles himself, feel the warmth of his glance and hear the music of his voice. No objection was admissible; all was certain. It was monstrous enough to have suffered the pangs of jealousy on the night before; but now that the bright dreams and glorious dawn had dispelled these, she felt sure that good news had come at last. Youth is so constituted, that it quickly wipes its tears away, for it is natural for youth to be happy, while its breath is made up of hope. Cora could not have recalled a single instance in which Charles Stevens had uttered a word of hope or encouragement to her. Her thoughts seemed to play at hide and seek in her brain, and she was so strangely, peculiarly happy this morning, that she preferred to enjoy the revels of day-dreams to the realities of life. Leaving her bed, she bathed her face and said her prayers. Voices were heard without, and she listened. One was the well beloved voice of Charles Stevens. He was speaking with some one, whom she rightly guessed had just arrived. The voice of the new-comer was too far distant for her to recognize it at first: but her eye, glancing through the lattice, descried the form of a man coming toward the house. That tall form, with thin, cadaverous features and stern, unbending eye, was the man who had publicly condemned her and held her up to the scorn of the whole congregation, because she was the child of a player. Cora did not hate him, for she was too pure, too good, too heavenly to hate even the man who had declared her to be a firebrand of perdition. What was his object this lovely morn? His appearance dispelled all the rosy dreams and once more plunged her into that horrible, oppressive gloom, which seemed heavier than lead upon her heart. "You are abroad early, this morning, Mr. Parris," Charles answered to the minister's morning greeting. "Not too soon, however," the reverend gentleman answered. "The devil does not sleep. He is abroad continually, and, verily, one needs must rise early to be before him and his minions." "Where are you going, Mr. Parris?" asked the youth. "I am coming here." "Your call is early." "Not earlier than Satan's. I trow he is here even already and hath abided with you, before I came." Charles made no answer to this, for there is no wrath like the wrath of an angry preacher, whose zeal warps his judgment and makes a fanatic of him. Bigoted, tyrannical, haughty and cruel, Parris swooped down on his enemies with the fury of an eagle. Charles Stevens was a little amazed at the manner of the minister and asked: "Is your business with me?" "It is." "What is it?" "It seems best that we converse where there is no danger of being overheard, Charles, as what I have to say is of a very grave and serious nature and concerns your soul's welfare." When a bigoted, ambitious zealot becomes interested in the welfare of a person, that person is in danger. The anxious girl, whose face was pressed close to the window lattice watching the men, heard all and turned so pale, that even the warm rays of the sun failed to give the tint and glow of life to the cheek. She saw them walk away down the path and go across the brook among the trees and over the distant hill. To Charles, it was like making a pilgrimage to some place of evil, the end of which he dreaded. Across the hill, hidden from the town by trees and intervening slope, they paused near the corner of a stone fence, and Mr. Parris leaned against the wall and gazed on Charles in silence. "What have you to say, Mr. Parris?" the young man asked, as the cold, gray eye, like a gleam of steel fell upon him. Mr. Parris, in slow and measured tones, answered: "No man knows until the time comes what depths are within him. To some men it never comes. Let them rest and be thankful. To me it was brought--it was forced upon me. I am despised, misused and abused by the world for the fact that I stand in the hand of God to do his holy will." "You talk strangely, Mr. Parris," said Charles, when the wild-eyed fanatic had finished and turned his haggard face up toward heaven. "I think your earnestness and zeal are mistaken." "Yes, mistaken by all; but I know the Lord ordains me for this good and holy work, and I will serve my Master, hard as the task may be." "Mr. Parris, may we not be mistaken in what constitutes the service of the Master?" "Aye! Is not the way so plain that a wayfaring man, though a fool, cannot err therein?" "Yet, 'they shall put you out of the synagogues; yea, the time cometh that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.' The great question to decide is which is right. 'Not every one that saith Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.'" "I am right!" cried Mr. Parris, his face flaming with passion. "So Melendez believed, when he drenched the soil of Fort Carolinia with the blood of innocent women and children." "Young man, I am the preacher, not you. It is for me to speak and you to listen. Satan has been unchained, and the air is full of evil spirits." "Mr. Parris, I have heard enough. Let me stop you here. It will be better for you and better for me. Let me go home." "Not yet. The Lord commands, and it must and shall be spoken. I have been in torments ever since I stopped short of it before. Look not amazed nor alarmed when I tell you that the day of the wrath of the Lord is coming, and the minions of hell that torment this accursed land will be gathered into the fires of destruction. Charles, forgive this earnestness, it is for your sake. It is another of my miseries. I cannot speak on that subject nor of that subject without stumbling at every syllable, unless I let go my check and run mad;" and as Charles Stevens gazed into those wild eyes and hollow cheeks, he thought the man must already be mad. "Let us return home, Mr. Parris. Take another day to think, before you give expression to what you would say." "No, no; you must hear me now! Here is a man driving his cows forth to graze. He will be gone directly. I entreat you let us walk down the road and return, for what I would say, Charles, must be for your ears alone." He yielded to the entreaty. How could he do otherwise, for there could be no harm in walking with the pastor? Mr. Parris, among his other accomplishments, had the power of dissembling. He could assume a smiling exterior while a devil raged in his heart. After they had gone aside some distance, and the farmer had passed on with his cows, they returned to the old stone wall, and Charles waited, very much as a criminal might, who stood to receive his sentence. "You know what I am going to say," the pastor began, his austere face once more assuming its terrible expression. "You don't like me, your mother don't like me, and the congregation is divided, doing all in their power to dispossess me; but I am right. What other men may mean when they use that expression, I cannot tell. What I mean is that I am under the influence of some tremendous power, which I know is God Almighty, Himself, and resist that power I dare not. I may be called a fanatic, cruel, mad; but the great and good God who made me ordains me in all things. This power--this spirit--this will, whatever it may be, is the chief motive that moves me. It could draw me to fire; it could draw me to water; it could draw me to the rack, as it did martyrs of old; it could draw me to any death--to anything pleasing, or repulsive; but I am mistaken, misunderstood by people, and the future as well as the present generation may condemn me in their narrow views as being dishonest, as being revengeful, as being even bloodthirsty; but, Charles, when God did command Peter to slay, did he refuse? No. If my God commands me to slay, I will do it, though rivers of blood shall flow----" The face of the wild fanatic was terrible to look upon. Charles Stevens, bold as he was, gazing on him in the full light of day, could not repress a shudder. His thin, cadaverous face, smooth shaven and of an ashen hue, was upturned to heaven, and those great, awful eyes seemed gazing on things unlawful for man to see. The long right arm was raised toward the sky, and again that deep voice called out: "O thou great Jehovah, do but command me, and rivers of blood shall flow----" "Mr. Parris!" began Charles, alarmed. "Stop! I implore you do not interrupt me, Charles. Wait until, by fasting and prayer and long, solemn meditation on these mysterious subjects, the Lord has opened your eyes to the invisible world, then you may judge. If you become weary with long standing, sit down, and I will pour into your ears such proofs that you can no longer deny the existence of witchcraft." Charles felt the strange spell of the fanatic's presence, and he merely bowed his head as a signal for him to proceed. Mr. Parris, in his deep sepulchral voice, continued:[B] [Footnote B: Like argument is used by Cotton Mather in his "Invisible World."] "Mr. John Higginson, that reverend and excellent person, says that the Indians, which came from far to settle about Mexico, were, in their progress to that settlement, under a conduct of a Devil, very strangely emulating the blessed covenant which God gave Israel in the wilderness. Acosta says that the Devil, in their idol Vitzlipultzli, governed that mighty nation. He commanded them to leave their country, promising to make them lords over all the provinces possessed by six other nations of Indians, and give them a land abounding with all precious things. They went forth, carrying their idol with them in a coffer of reeds, supported by four of their principal priests, with whom he still discoursed in secret, revealing to them the successes and accidents of their way. He advised them when to march and where to stay, and, without his command, they moved not. The first thing they did wherever they came, was to erect a tabernacle for their false god, which they always set in the midst of their camp, and they placed the ark upon an altar. When, wearied with the pains and fatigues of travel, they talked of proceeding no further in their journey than a certain pleasant stage, whereto they were arrived, the Devil, in one night, horribly killed the ones who had started this talk by pulling out their hearts, and so they passed on till they came to Mexico. "The same Devil, which then thus imitated what was in the church of the Old Testament, now among us, would imitate the affairs of the church in the New. The witches do say that they form themselves after the manner of Congregational Churches, and that they have baptism and a supper and officers among them, abominably resembling those of our Lord. What is their striking down with a fierce look? What is their making of the afflicted rise with a touch of their hand? What is their transportation through the air? What is their travelling in spirit, while their body is cast into a trance? What is their causing cattle to run mad and perish? What is their entering their names in a book, their coming together from all parts at the sound of a trumpet, their appearing sometimes clothed with light and fire upon them, then covering themselves and their instruments with invisibility? Are not all these but a blasphemous imitation of certain things recorded about our Saviour, or his prophets, or the saints in the kingdom of God?" "Mr. Parris," said Charles, when the fanatic had paused in his wild harangue for want of breath, "you seem in earnest; but you must bear in mind that there is a mistaken zeal----" "Hold, Charles, I know what you would say; but God has opened my eyes to the abominations of witchcraft." "So Bishop Mendoza thought, when he ordered the innocent slain. Beware of false prophets, Mr. Parris. They are more to be dreaded than the protean devil of which you speak. Be sure that you remove the beam from your own eye, before you try to see the mote in the eye of your brother." The sallow face of the fanatic grew more ghastly than before. His teeth gnashed, and his great eyes seemed starting in hatred from his head. Seizing the wrist of Charles with his hand, he clutched it so tightly as to almost make him cry out in pain. "Charles, Charles, why persecutest thou me? Have not the scales of infidelity fallen from your eyes? Would you deny the power of God?" Charles Stevens, by an effort, freed his hand and, with a boldness which increased as he spoke, answered: "It is not God whom I deny, but man. God is good and just and kind. He who, in the name of the Lord, would pervert His holy word is an impostor and blasphemer more base than a thief or an infidel." "Charles, beware!" "I have listened patiently to you, Mr. Parris. Now listen to me. Where do you find in Scripture justification for the charges you lay at the doors of innocent people such as Goody Nurse, Goody Easty, Goody Cloyse and the poor little maid Cora Waters? What harm have they ever done you, that you, as a Christian man, might not forgive them?" "Charles----" interrupted Mr. Parris. "Hold, sir; you shall hear me through. Mr. Parris, you must be a man of singular shamelessness, craft, ruthlessness and impudence, withal. You began your operations with sharp bargaining about your stipend and sharp practice in appropriating the house and land assigned for the use of successive pastors. You wrought so diligently, under the stimulus of your ambition, that you have got the meeting-house sanctioned as a true church and yourself ordained as the first pastor of Salem Village. Because you were opposed by Goody Nurse, her sisters and others, you seek to charge them with offences made punishable under our laws with death." The sallow face of the pastor grew almost white; but, in a voice of forced calmness, he said: "Go on--go on!" "No; it is for you to tell, without further discussion, why you brought me here. Rather let me guess it. You have brought me to say something to me about Cora Waters. You have come to tell me she is a witch, and I tell you it is false." The passionate minister glared at the youth for a moment and said: "Charles, do you deny that she is the child of a player?" "I do not; but what sin follows being the child of a player, or being even a player? Nowhere does the Bible condemn the actor for his profession; and, if the player be godly, his calling is unobjectionable. Oh, Mr. Parris, eradicate from your heart the deadly poison of prejudice, and there will appear no harm in that fair, innocent and much-abused young maid. She has ever been a child of sorrow and of tears, one who never in thought wronged any one. Tell me that child is a witch? Mr. Parris, it is false!" [Illustration: "Then you may both go down--down to the infernal regions together!"] "Then," cried the pastor, suddenly changing his tone, turning to Charles, and bringing his clenched hand down upon the stone fence with a force that laid the knuckles raw and bleeding; "then you may both go down--down to the infernal regions together!" The dark look of hatred and revenge with which the words broke from his livid lips, and with which he stood holding out his bruised and bleeding hand, made Charles shudder and turn to go home; but the pastor caught his arm. "Mr. Parris, let me go. I have heard quite enough. We understand each other thoroughly." "And you will not give her up?" "Never." "Verily, she hath bewitched you." "I do not believe in witchcraft." "What! Do you deny the word of God? Have a care! You are going too far in this. And your mother?" "She does not believe in it, either." "Charles, why have you and your mother grievously opposed me?" he demanded, his eyes glaring with hatred and his breath coming hard, while a white froth, tinged with blood, exuded from his lips. "Because you are a bad man, Mr. Parris," cried Charles. "You are a saintly fraud." The rage of the pastor knew no bounds. Pointing his wounded and bleeding hand at Charles, he cried: "Go! and may the curse of an outraged God go with you!" Charles went home. CHAPTER XI. ADELPHA LEISLER. Oh, my luve's like a red, red rose, That's newly sprung in June; Oh, my luve's like the melodie, That's sweetly played in tune. As fair art thou, my bonnie lass, So deep in luve am I; And I will luve thee still, my dear, Till a' the seas gang dry. --Burns. There are moments in every life when the soul hovers on some dark brink. It may be the brink of atheism, of despair, of crime, or superstition. Outside influences go far toward impelling life's voyager on his course. If the current takes a sudden turn, it bears him in a different direction from which he had intended. The human mind is inexplicable. It is not a machine that can be taken apart and analyzed. It is not material that can be grasped and comprehended. It is that mysterious knowing, feeling and willing, independent of circumstances; that immortal, indestructible portion of man called soul. It is governed by no known laws, and at times seems to assume all the caprices of chance. Charles Stevens was a youth of good strong, common sense; yet he could but feel strangely impressed by the words and the awful look of Mr. Parris. The man was surely more than mortal. His voice, hollow and sepulchral, seemed to issue from the tomb. His thin, cadaverous face was sufficient in itself to inspire wonder. Those great, blazing eyes had within them all the fires of lunacy, fanaticism and cunning. Mr. Parris was nothing more than an unscrupulous bigot. He was ambitious, as is proven by his machinations in getting himself declared the pastor of Salem. He was greedy, as is shown by his taking the parsonage and lands as well as demanding an increase in his stipend. He was revengeful, as is shown by the way in which he persecuted those who opposed him. He was unscrupulous in his methods, as is proven in the means he employed. He was filled with prejudice, as is shown in his assailing Cora Waters, because her father was an actor; yet Mr. Parris believed himself a righteous and holy man, walking in the path of the just. Charles Stevens failed to tell his mother of the strange interview with the pastor, somehow he could not. He unaccountably shuddered when he thought of it, and, despite the fact that he had little superstition in his composition, he felt at times a strange instinctive dread at the awful warning of the pastor. Since the evening on which the name of Adelpha Leisler had been mentioned, Cora Waters had been strangely shy and reticent, so that Charles Stevens could not tell her of the interview with Mr. Parris, even if he would. Cora was a remarkable girl. She united in the highest perfection the rarest of earthly gifts--genius and beauty. No one possesses superior intellectual qualities without knowing it. The alliteration of modesty and merit is pretty enough; but where merit is great, the veil of that modesty never disguises its extent from its possessor. It is the proud consciousness of rare qualities, not to be revealed to the every-day world, that gives to genius that shy, reserved and troubled air, which puzzles and flatters you, when you encounter it. Cora realized her beauty and genius; but, with that charming versatility, that of right belongs to woman, she had the faculty of bending and modelling her graceful intellect to all whom she met. Her rare genius, however, could not brook the cold reproofs of the bigoted Parris. The flower which might have ornamented his chapel and filled the little church with sweetest perfume was withered by the chilling frosts of bigotry and prejudice. A player could yield no perfume for Christ, and the sweet, musical voice was stilled, and the heart so full of love, emotion and religion was chilled and driven into exile; but she lived and hoped in her own little world. The sunlight of love was on her heart, until the name of Adelpha Leisler shut out that sunlight and left all in darkness and despair. Though Cora was excommunicated for being the child of a player, she never let go her hold on Christ. Her father, strolling actor as he was, had taught her to look to God for everything, and in her hour of trial, she knelt in the seclusion of her own room and prayed that this cup might pass from her lips, if it be the Lord's will; but if not, she asked God to give her strength to bear her suffering and trials. She freely forgave Mr. Parris, for she believed his persecution of herself and others was through mistaken zeal. With Charles Stevens, she was more shy than she used to be. She kept aloof from him for two or three days, until her conduct became noticeable, and Charles one day sought her in the garden for an explanation. "Have I offended you, Cora?" he asked. She turned her frightened eyes to his for a moment and answered: "No." "Then why do you avoid me? I have scarcely seen you for three days." She was overwhelmed with hope and confusion for some moments; then, with a faltering voice, she asked: "Did you wish to see me?" "I did, Cora. I would not give offence to you for the world, and I feared I had in some way wounded your feelings." "Charles, was not Mr. Parris here the other morning?" "Yes." "You went away with him; I saw you through my window." "I did." "Why did he come?" "Don't ask me about that man. He is one whom I would to God I had never known." "Don't speak so of him, Charles." "Cora, he is a bad man." "He is the pastor." "For all that, he is cruel and bloodthirsty. I know it. I feel it." Cora shuddered and made a feeble effort to defend the pastor who had persecuted her; but Charles, who had the retaliating spirit of humanity in his soul, declared he was a pious fraud and a disgrace to his cloth. On their return to the house, Mrs. Stevens met them at the door with a glad smile on her face, and cried: "She has come, Charles." "Who?" he asked. "Adelpha Leisler." Mrs. Stevens saw an immediate change in the face of Cora. The features which had begun to glow with happiness suddenly grew sad and clouded, and the eyes drooped. Charles did not perceive that sudden change so apparent to his mother, for, at the announcement of the arrival of one whom he had known in his happy childhood days, his heart bounded with joy. "Where is she, mother?" "With Goody Nurse." He hastily took leave of Cora, who, with an oppressive weight on her heart, which seemed to almost suffocate her, went to the little room in which she had known so much joy and misery. All was dark now. Her heart vibrated painfully in her breast. Hope and joy seemed forever banished. He was gone. She could hear his footsteps moving away from the house, and, throwing herself on the couch, she gave way to a fit of weeping. Never did Cora Waters so feel her utter insignificance and loneliness. She was a child of an indented slave, utterly dependent on the one whom she had had the audacity to love. When she realized how unworthy she was, the unfortunate girl sobbed, half aloud: "Oh, God, why didst thou create me with desires and ambitions above my sphere? Why didst thou cast me into this place, where I would meet him, only to suffer? Father, father, come and take me hence!" Meanwhile, Charles Stevens, unconscious of her suffering, was hurrying as rapidly as he could to the home of Goody Nurse, where he was to meet Adelpha Leisler. He reached the house and was greeted by a tall, beautiful young woman, with great, black eyes and hair. The greeting she gave him was warm, almost ardent, for, although Adelpha was an accomplished young lady, she had all of the genial warmth of youth. They were soon talking pleasantly of those happy days of long ago. Glorious past, gone like a golden dream to return no more! The very memory of such pleasure produces pain, because it is forever gone. Great changes had come since last they met. His father was living then, a handsome, strong man, noted for his kindness of heart. Many friends, who now existed only in pleasant remembrance, then lived, breathed and moved upon the earth. Then he loved Adelpha, and she loved him, and he half hoped that this meeting in mature life would reproduce the pleasant sensations of childhood; but there is a love which is not the love of the thoughtless and the young--a love which sees not with the eyes and hears not with the ears, but in which soul is enamoured of soul. The cave-nursed Plato dreamed of such a love. His followers sought to imitate it; but it is a love that is not for the multitude to echo. It is a love which only high and noble natures can conceive, and it has nothing in common with the sympathies and ties of coarse affections. Wrinkles do not revolt it. Homeliness of features do not deter it. It demands youth only in the freshness of emotions. It requires only the beauty of thought and spirit. Such a love steals on when one least suspects and takes possession of the soul. Such a love cannot be uprooted by admiration or fancy. Charles Stevens found Adelpha grown so beautiful, so witty and accomplished, that he was awed in her presence at first; but her freedom of manner removed all restraint, and in an hour they seemed transported back to childhood's happy hours. Next day they wandered as they had done in earlier years by purling streams and mossy banks, under cool shadows of friendly trees. Every old playground and hallowed spot was visited once more, and they lived over those joyous scenes of childhood. "I sometimes wish that childhood would last forever," said Charles. "Childhood brings its joys, but its sorrows as well," Adelpha answered, as she sat on the mossy bank at his side, her bright eyes on his face. "One would grow weary of never advancing. Don't you remember how, in your boyhood, you looked forward with pleasure to the time when you would be a man?" "I do." "And how you planned for a glorious future?" "I remember it all." "To doom you to perpetual childhood, to constantly have those hopes of being a man blasted would eventually bring you to endless misery. No, Charles, childhood, to be happy and joyous, must be brief. The youth with ambition longs to enter man's estate. He sees life only in its rosiest hues, and his hopes and anticipations form half his happiness." "Your words, Adelpha, teach me how foolish and idle was my remark. Let us change the subject to something more practical. Will your father, as governor of New York, be disturbed?" Her face grew sad. "I have great fears." "For what?" "Father and Jacob Milborne may be declared usurpers." "But it was on the accession of William and Mary to the throne of England that your father became governor." "True. It was not until Andros had been seized in Boston, imprisoned and sent to England, that my father suggested the seizure of Fort James. He was made commander and afterward governor, and so holds his office to this day. I don't know how William and Mary, our dread sovereigns, will be affected by this seizure of the government of New York." "It was in their interest." "It was so intended; but we have all learned not to put our trust in princes. It is quite dangerous to do so, and I sometimes fear that trouble will come of it." "Surely, Adelpha, one of your happy turn of mind would not borrow trouble. It will come quite soon enough without, and a philosopher would wait until it comes rather than seek it." "You are right, Charles; let us be young again, romp in the wood, chase butterflies and forget the dark clouds that may be hovering over us." She started to her feet and asked: "Charles, who is that lovely, but shy young girl, whom I see hurrying along the path?" He looked in the direction indicated by Adelpha's jewelled finger, and said: "She is Cora Waters." "And who is Cora Waters?" "A very sweet and amiable girl tarrying here for the present. Her father was a player, and he became involved in the rebellion in England." Charles did not care to tell all, for Cora was a disagreeable subject to discuss with Adelpha; but the companion of his childhood was not to be so easily put off. "Charles, she is very pretty. Why have you not told me of her before?" "I did not suppose you would be interested in her," the young man answered. "Not interested in her, with all the romance attached to her. A child reared in old England, of which I have heard so much, the daughter of a player, perchance an actress herself. Oh, Charles, I am very anxious to see her and talk with her." "Adelpha, do you forget that she is a player?" "Oh, no; we descendants of the Netherlands look on such things in a far different light from the fanatical Puritans of New England. I must know this Cora Waters." "You shall." As Charles strolled away from the spring with Adelpha, the face of Sarah Williams appeared from behind some bushes. Her jet black eyes flashed with fire, and her teeth gnashed until they threatened to crack between her angry jaws. "He hath another! Which of the two doth he love most? I will know, and then--woe betide her!" Sarah Williams was cunning and utterly unscrupulous. As she glared after Charles and Adelpha, her fertile brain was forming a desperate, wicked scheme. She watched them until they disappeared over the hill, and then, turning about, walked hurriedly to the parsonage. Adelpha, who was a merry, light-hearted girl, in love with all the world, insisted on forming the acquaintance of Cora, until Charles, to gratify her, granted her request, and the maids met. Cora was distant and conventional, while Adelpha was warm-hearted and genial. They came to like each other, despite the fact that each looked on the other as a rival. Cora had given up Charles Stevens, realizing that she was inferior and unworthy in every sense, and certainly not capable of competing with the daughter of the governor of New York. On the other hand, Adelpha saw a dangerous rival in this mysterious maid with eyes of blue and hair of gold; but Adelpha was honest and true, as were the old Knickerbockers who followed her. She realized the maid's power and, in her frank and open manner, loved her rival. Despite the fact that they were rivals, the girls became friends, and as Adelpha had learned more of Cora's trials, she gave her the full sympathy of her warm, loving heart. Sarah Williams, who watched them with no little interest, asked herself: "I know he loves both. Can a man wed two? No; he must choose between the two, so I will stand between." Charles, on account of his superior education, was regarded as an extraordinary personage. He was gloomy and sad of late, for Sarah Williams, with her keen woman's instinct, had probed his secret. He was troubled to know which maid he loved most. Cora, with her melancholy beauty, appealed to his strong emotions; but Adelpha, with her fine figure, her great, dark, lustrous eyes and charming manner, seemed equally attractive. If Cora were the stream that ran deepest, Adelpha was the one that sparkled brightest. At one moment he was ready to avow his love for one, and the next moment he was willing to swear eternal fealty to the other. Late one afternoon, he wandered with Cora at his side across the flowery meadow to a point of land presenting a grand and picturesque view of green fields, blue hills and the distant sea. They had come to watch the sunset, and Charles wished to be alone with Cora, that he might sound the depths of his heart and ask himself if he really loved her. Her father was to come in a few days and take her away to the far-off wilderness, so, if he spoke the promptings of his soul, he must do it now. Long they sat on the grassy knoll and watched the declining sun. "How long have you known Adelpha?" Cora asked. "We were children together." "Has she always lived in New York?" "Yes; but our grandparents knew each other. Matthew Stevens had a Dutch friend, Hans Van Brunt, whom he met in Holland. When Van Brunt emigrated to New Amsterdam and Matthew Stevens to New Plymouth they renewed their friendship. Their descendants have always kept up the friendship. Matthew Stevens was my grandfather, and Hans Van Brunt was Adelpha Leisler's great-grandfather. When quite a child, Adelpha's mother, the wife of a prosperous New York merchant, spent a year in Boston where I lived. It was then Adelpha and I first became acquainted." Cora's eyes were on the distant blue hills; but her thoughts seemed elsewhere. Charles would have given much to have known what was in her mind. Did she, in her heart, entertain hatred for Adelpha? Her remark a moment later convinced him to the contrary. "Adelpha is a lovely maid and as good as she is beautiful. Her lot is a happy one." There was no bitterness, no regret in the remark; yet her words were so sad, that they went to the heart of Charles. "Cora, there is such a difference in the lots of people, that sometimes I almost believe God is unjust." "Charles!" she cried, quite shocked. "Hear me out, before you condemn me, Cora. Here is Adelpha, who has known only sunshine and happiness, health and prosperity. She was born in a wealthy family, and has all the luxuries that riches can buy----" "She is good and deserves them," interrupted Cora. "God has rewarded her." "But, on the other hand, you are just as good; yet your life has been one of bitterness. Misery seems to steal some people at their birth; but sometimes there come changes in the lives of people. All may run smoothly for a while, then storms gather about the head of the child of fortune, while, on the other hand, to one who has fought and struggled through storms and adversity a peaceful harbor may open----" Cora suddenly said: "God forbid, Charles, that our lots should be reversed. I would not have Adelpha Leisler drain the cup of bitterness, as I have done; but we must change our subject, for, see there, Adelpha and Alice Corey are coming." He looked up and saw the two near at hand. Alice Corey was a bright-eyed girl of fourteen, a niece of Goody Nurse who had been accused of witchcraft. She was a girl of a light and happy disposition, and, as yet, cares sat lightly on her brow. "Watching the sunset, are you?" said Adelpha, breathless with rapid walking. "We have been," answered Charles. "Well, it is a pretty thing to see, and I wish he would always be setting," declared Alice Corey. "A child's wish," answered Adelpha. "What would become of your flowers?" "I am sure I don't know. I do so love that red tinge over there, just where it touches the gray." "It is somewhat like that queer sea-shell which Cora showed me yesterday," said Adelpha. "What splendid paints these mermaids must use, down in their deep sea-caves! It is a kind that does not rub off with wetting. The shells are their pink saucers." "What! Do they really paint?" cried the credulous Alice. Charles Stevens laughed softly and answered: "No, child. You must not believe such stories. I will tell you a prettier one if you'll listen." "Oh, I'll listen!" cried Alice, who, like all children, was ever ready to give ears to a story. Charles began: "Once upon a time, long before Adam and Eve lived, I believe it was, while the earth was young, there lived on it a fair, radiant maiden, sweeter than the breath of fresh-blown roses and more lustrous than the morning star. All the world was her own paradise, and she traversed it as she chose, finding everywhere trees bearing golden fruit, which never turned to ashes, flowers in perpetual bloom, fountains that bubbled and birds that sang in the linden groves, all for her. Nothing was forbidden her. No cares, no fears, or griefs marred her pleasures; for she had no law to consult but her own wishes. When she would eat, the trees bent down their boughs, and whispered, 'Choose my fruit.' When she would listen, the birds vied with each other in their melodies. When she would walk, the green sod was proud to bear her, and, when weary, the gentlest flower-laden zephyrs soothed her to rest. Thus she might have remained always happy; but one day she chanced to see herself in the water, and she thought how every thing else was double. Then she became conscious of a strange pain. Every thing now lost its charm. She sought a companion; but she could find none. Nothing was wanting but the thing she most desired--the sight of her own kin. At last, she instinctively felt that the burning gaze of a lover was bent upon her face, and, looking up, she saw only the sun in the sky, shining as though myriads needed his light. 'Alas!' she sighed, 'He is as lonely as I, and he shall be my lover;' but the sun was coy and timid. He gazed proudly at her from a great distance, and veiled himself behind a cloud when she would see him, that his brightness might not harm her; but he never came nigh. At last, when she was worn out with longing for a closer companionship, she set out to find her adored sun; and as she sighed, 'Shall I find him never?' some one from a grotto near by answered, 'Ever?' 'Who are you?' cried the maid. 'I am a bodiless spirit,' was the answer, 'the voice of one that is gone. I tell impossible things. I am the shadow of the past, the substance of events to come. Man is a mocker.' 'Can you tell me where to find my lover?' asked the maid. Echo told her not to look up for him, for he was too high above her, not to seek him in the east, for then he was hastening away; but to seek him in the west, where he laid himself and rested at night, for the night was made for lovers. Then she hastened joyously, till she came to the extreme west, to the very edge of the world." "How could she get to the edge, when it is round?" interrupted Alice. "Probably the world was not round at that time," explained Adelpha. Charles went on: "The maid summoned all the powers of nature and the air, and bade them build a palace. It was not like other palaces. There were no jewels there; but every thing was warm and crimson and ruddy. The gates were parallel bars of cloud, with the west wind for warden. Crystals of rain-drops paved the court-yard. The architecture was floating mists and delicate vapors, filled with a silent music, that waited only for the warm touch of the player to melt it into soul-subduing harmonies; and along the galleries ran a netted fringe of those tender whispers, which only the favored may hear. So she built her palace and filled it with all things such as she thought the sun would like, not forgetting an abundance of fire to warm him, lest even her love would prove insufficient for one of so fiery a nature. Then she dismissed her attendants and sat down alone to wait his coming. The day seemed long and drear and weary; but she had seen him watching her, and he was coming at last. Down the slope he glided, holding his fiery steeds in check. There was joy for the desolate one, for her lover was coming; but the pitiless sun descended and swept by, scorning the open gates, and her siren voice, that would have wooed him thither. The next day passed, and the next, and the next, and she was still disappointed; but she could not believe that all her labor had been in vain, and still she nursed her sickly, dying hope. Though that sun has set thousands of times since then, she hopes for their union still. In the day time the palace is dark like the clouds; but, as evening approaches, she lights it up for his coming. Then we see those glorious tints of crimson and gold and purple and dun, dimming till they mingle with the white clouds above, and, were we near enough, we might possibly hear the tones of the reviving music, as it melts; but as the sun goes fairly down, the music hushes, the beautiful tints fade and die, the palace becomes a dark spot again, and the poor little watcher within sighs forth her disappointment and composes herself to wait for another sunset." "I don't believe your story, Charles Stevens," said Alice, at the conclusion, "and I don't see what good it does, anyhow, to make up such a one as that." "The moral in it is man's faithlessness and woman's constancy," put in Cora Waters, who had, for a long time, been silent. Adelpha, who had watched the sun sink beneath the distant blue hills, as she listened to Charles, now chanced to glance over her shoulder at the sea behind, with the moon just rising above the watery horizon, and with a merry peal of laughter she added: "Charles, your heroine is more dull than modern maids, or, when the sun jilted her, she would have wooed the moon." Alice, rising, said, "It is growing dark. Let us go home." "Alice, are you afraid of the witches, which seem to disturb Mr. Parris and Cotton Mather?" asked Adelpha. "There are no witches," Alice Corey answered with a shudder. "Father and mother both deny that there are any witches, and it is wrong to cry out against my aunt, Goody Nurse." "I dare say it is. The evening grows chill. Let us go home." As the four wended their way across the fields and meadows, Charles Stevens, who walked between Cora and Adelpha, cast alternately furtive glances at each, sorely troubled to decide which he liked best. "Both are beautiful," he thought. "Ere long I must wed, and which of the twain shall it be? Both are beautiful, and both are good; but, unfortunately, they are two, and I am one." The child, who had lingered behind to pluck a wild flower, at this moment came running after them, calling: "Wait! wait! I implore you, wait for me!" "What have you seen, Alice?" "A black woman." The girls were almost ready to faint; but Charles, who was above superstition, bade them be calm and hurried through the deepening shades of twilight to the trees on the hill where the woman had been seen. He came in sight of the figure of a woman clothed in black, sitting at the root of an oak. "Who are you?" he asked, advancing toward her. "Charles Stevens!" she gasped, raising her head. "Sarah Williams, what are you doing here?" "Prythee, what are you doing?" she asked. "This is unaccountable." She rose and, turning her white face to him, said: "Charles Stevens, which of the twain do you love best?" and she pointed to Cora and Adelpha. He made no answer. "Which of the twain is it?" she repeated. "Aye, Charles Stevens, you shall never wed either. Do you hear?" [Illustration: "Which of the twain shall it be?"] "Woman, what mean you?" "You cannot decide which you love most. Wed neither, Charles. Wed me!" "You!" he cried, in astonishment. "Yes, why not?" "You already have a husband." "No; he is dead, he was lost at sea. I am still young and fair, and wherefore not choose me?" Charles Stevens burst into a laugh, half merriment and half disgust, and turned from the bold, scheming woman. She followed him for a few paces, saying in tones low but deep: "Verily, Charles Stevens, you scorn me; but I will yet make you repent that you ever treated my love with contempt. You shall rue this day." He hurried away from the annoyance, treating her threats lightly, and little dreaming that they would be fulfilled. Winter came and passed, and Adelpha Leisler still lingered at Salem. Rumors of trouble came to her ears from home; but the light-hearted girl gave them little thought. One morning in May, 1691, Charles met her coming to seek him. Her face was deathly white, and her frame trembling. "What has happened, Adelpha?" "There is trouble at home, Charles," she cried. "Father and Milborne have been arrested and imprisoned and I fear it will fare hard with them. I want to set out for New York at once. Will you accompany me?" "I will." They found his mother and Cora and told them all. He implored Cora to remain with his mother, until he returned, which she consented to do. CHAPTER XII. LEISLER'S FATE. The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, And all that beauty, and all that wealth e'er gave, Await alike the inevitable hour:---- The paths of glory lead but to the grave. --Gray. In order to explain the sudden danger which menaced the father of Adelpha Leisler, and which she, like a true, heroic daughter, hastened to brave, we will be compelled to narrate some events in our story of a historical nature. Jacob Leisler was an influential colonist of an old Dutch family, as has been stated, and a Presbyterian. Under the reign of James II. the Presbyterians had suffered, and no one rejoiced more at the accession of William and Mary than did the Dutch of New York. Sir Edmond Andros, the weak tool of the Duke of York, had rendered himself decidedly unpopular as governor of New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts. Every one rejoiced when he was finally arrested at Boston and sent to England, and no one rejoiced more than the New Yorkers themselves. The accession of William and Mary to the throne of England was hailed with joy throughout the American Colonies. In New York, a general disaffection to the government prevailed among the people. Under the smiles of Governor Andros, papists began to settle in the colony. The collector of the revenues and several principal officers of King James threw off the mask and openly avowed their attachment to the doctrines of Rome. A Latin school was set up, and the teacher was strongly suspected of being a Jesuit. The people of Long Island were disappointed in their expectations of the favors promised by the governor on his arrival, and became his personal enemies, and in a word the whole body of the people had begun to tremble for the Protestant cause. Here the leaven of opposition first began to work. Intelligence from England of the designs there in favor of Orange elevated the hopes of the disaffected; but until after the rupture in Boston, no man dared to act. Sir Edmond Andros, who was perfectly devoted to the arbitrary measures of King James, by his tyranny in New England had drawn upon himself the universal odium of a people animated with a love of liberty, and in the defense of it resolute and courageous. Therefore, when unable longer to endure his despotic rule, he was seized, imprisoned and afterward sent to England as has been stated. The government was, in the meantime, vested in a committee of safety, of which Mr. Bradstreet was chosen president. Already, information of the popular uprising in England for the Prince of Orange had reached New York and was stirring the blood of the progenitors of the old Knickerbockers, who longed to have their own beloved prince with them. On receiving news of the arrest of the detested Andros, several captains of the New York militia convened themselves to concert measures in favor of the Prince of Orange. Among them was Jacob Leisler, Adelpha's father, who was most active of all. He was a man of wealth and considerable esteem among the people, but destitute of the qualifications essential to such an enterprise. His son-in-law, Milborne, a shrewd Englishman, directed all his councils, while Leisler as absolutely influenced the other officers. The first thing they contrived was to seize the garrison of New York; and the custom, at that time, of guarding it every night by militia gave Leisler a fine opportunity of executing the design. He entered it with forty-nine men and determined to hold it till the whole militia should join him. Colonel Dougan, who was about to leave the province, then lay embarked in the bay, having a little before resigned the government to Francis Nicholson, the lieutenant-governor. The council, civil officers and magistrates of the city were against Leisler, and therefore many of his friends were at first fearful of espousing a cause opposed by so many noted gentlemen. For this reason, Leisler's first declaration in favor of the Prince of Orange was subscribed by only a few among several companies of the train-bands. While the people, for four successive days, were in the utmost perplexity to determine what party to choose, being solicited by Leisler on the one hand and threatened by the lieutenant-governor on the other, the town was alarmed with a report that three ships were coming up with orders from the Prince of Orange. This report, though false, served to further the interests of Leisler; for on that day, June 3d, 1689, his party was augmented by the addition of six captains and four hundred men in New York and a company of seventy men from East Chester, who all subscribed a second declaration, mutually covenanting to hold the fort for that prince. Until this time, Colonel Dougan continued in the harbor, waiting the issues of these commotions, and Nicholson's party, being unable longer to contend with their opponents, were totally dispersed, the lieutenant-governor himself absconding on the very night after the declaration was signed. Leisler, being in complete possession of the fort, sent home an address to King William and Queen Mary, as soon as he received the news of their accession to the throne. The address was a tedious, incorrect, ill-drawn narrative of the grievances which the people had endured and the methods lately taken to secure themselves, ending with a recognition of the king and queen over the whole English dominion. This address was soon followed by a private letter from Leisler to King William, which, in very broken English, informed his majesty of the state of the garrison, the repairs he had made to it, and the temper of the people, and concluded with a strong protestation of his sincerity, loyalty and zeal. Jost Stoll, an ensign, on delivering this letter, had the honor to kiss his majesty's hand; but Nicholson, the lieutenant-governor, and one Ennis, an Episcopal clergyman, arrived in England before him, and by falsely representing the late measures in New York, as proceeding rather from their aversion to the Church of England than zeal for the Prince of Orange, Leisler and his party were deprived of the rewards and notice which their activity for the revolution justly warranted. Though the king made Stoll the bearer of his thanks to the people for their fidelity, he so little regarded Leisler's complaints against Nicholson, that the latter was soon after made the governor of Virginia, while Dougan returned to Ireland and became Earl of Limerick. Leisler's sudden rise to supreme power over the province, with fair prospects of King William's approbation of his conduct, could but excite the envy and jealousy of the late council and magistrates, who had refused to join in aiding the revolution; and hence the cause of all their aversion both to the man and his measures. Colonel Bayard and Courtland, the mayor of the city, headed the opposition to Leisler, and, finding it impossible to raise a party against him in the city, they very early retired to Albany, and there endeavored to foment the opposition. Leisler, fearful of their influence, and to extinguish the jealousy of the people, thought it prudent to admit several trusty persons to a participation in that power which the militia, on the first of July, had committed solely to himself. In conjunction with these, who, after the Boston example, were called the committee of safety, he exercised the government, assuming to himself only the honor of being president of their councils. This mode of government continued till the month of December, when a packet arrived with a letter from the Lords Carmarthen, Halifax and others, directed to "Francis Nicholson, esq., or, in his absence, to such as, for the time being, take care for preserving the peace and administering the laws, in their majesty's province of New York, in America." This letter was dated the 29th of July and was accompanied by another from Lord Nottingham, dated next day, which empowered Nicholson to take upon him the chief command, and to appoint for his assistance as many of the principal freeholders and inhabitants, as he should deem necessary, also requiring him "to do every thing appertaining to the office of lieutenant-governor, according to the laws and customs of New York, until further orders." As Nicholson had absconded before the letter reached New York, Leisler considered the letter as directed to himself, and from this time issued all kinds of commissions in his own name, assuming the title and authority of lieutenant-governor. It was while he was thus acting as governor that his daughter made a visit to Salem as was stated in the preceding chapter. On the 11th of December, he summoned the committee of safety and, agreeably to their advice, swore in the following persons for his council. "Peter De Lanoy, Samuel Stoats, Hendrick Jansen and Johannes Vermilie, for New York; Gerardus Beekman, for King's County; Thomas Williams for West Chester, and William Lawrence, for Orange County." Except the eastern inhabitants of Long Island, all the southern part of the colony cheerfully acquiesced to Leisler's command. The principal freeholders, however, by respectful letters, gave him hopes of their submission, and thereby prevented his taking up arms against them, while they were privately soliciting the colony of Connecticut to take them under its jurisdiction. It was not so much an aversion to Leisler's authority, as a desire to unite with a people from whom they had originally sprung, which prompted the Long Islanders to desire a union with Connecticut, and when Connecticut declined their offer of annexation, they appeared to openly advocate Leisler's cause. At Albany, the people were determined to hold the garrison and city for King William, independent of Leisler, and on the 26th of October, before the arrival of the packet from Lord Nottingham, they formed themselves into a convention to resist what they called the usurpation of Leisler. As Leisler's attempt to reduce this country to his command was the original cause of divisions in the province, and in the end brought about the ruin of himself and his son-in-law, it may not be out of place here to give the resolution of the convention at large, a copy of which was sent down to the usurping governor. "Peter Schuyler, mayor, Dirk Wessels, recorder, Jan Wendal, Jan Jansen Bleeker, Claes Ripse, David Schuyler, Albert Ryckman, aldermen, Killian Van Rensselaer, justice, Captain Marte Gerritse, justice, Captain Gerrit Teunisse, Dirk Teunisse, justices, Lieutenant Robert Saunders, John Cuyler, Gerrit Ryerse, Evert Banker, Rynier Barentse. "Resolved: since we are informed by persons coming from New York, that Captain Jacob Leisler is designed to send up a company of armed men, upon pretence to assist us in this country, who intend to make themselves master of their majesties' fort and this city, and carry divers persons and chief officers of this city prisoners to New York, and so disquiet and disturb their majesties' liege people; that a letter be written to Alderman Levinus Van Schaic, now at New York, and Lieutenant Jochim Staets, to make narrow inquiry of the business, and to signify to the said Leisler, that we have received such information; and withal acquaint him, that, notwithstanding we have the assistance of ninety-five men from our neighbors of New England, who are now gone for, and one hundred men upon occasion, to command, from the county of Ulster, which we think will be sufficient this winter, yet we will willingly accept any such assistance as they shall be pleased to send for the defence of their majesties' county of Albany; provided they be obedient to, and obey such orders and commands as they shall, from time to time, receive from the convention; and that by no means they will be admitted to have the command of their majesties' fort or this city; which we intend, by God's assistance, to keep and preserve for the behoof of their majesties, William and Mary, King and Queen of England, as we hitherto have done since their proclamation; and if you hear that they persevere with such intentions, so to disturb the inhabitants of this county, that you then, in the name and behalf of the convention and inhabitants of the city and county of Albany, protest against the said Leisler, and all such persons that shall make attempt for all losses, damages, bloodshed, or whatsoever mischiefs may insue thereon; which you are to communicate with all speed, as you perceive their design." Taking it for granted that Leisler at New York and the convention at Albany were equally affected by the revolution, nothing could be more egregiously foolish than the conduct of both parties, who, by their intestine divisions, threw the province into convulsions, sowing the seeds of mutual hatred and animosity, which, for a long time after, greatly embarrassed the public affairs of the colony. When Albany declared for the Prince of Orange, there was nothing else that Leisler could properly require; and, rather than sacrifice the public peace of the province to the trifling honor of resisting a man who had no civil designs, Albany ought to have delivered the garrison into his hands, until the king's orders were received; but while Leisler was intoxicated with his new-gotten power, Bayard, Courtland and Schuyler, on the other hand could not brook a submission to the authority of a man, mean in his abilities and inferior in his degree. Animated by these feelings both sides prepared for hostilities. Mr. Livingston, a principal agent for the convention, retired into Connecticut to solicit aid for the protection of the frontier against the French. Leisler, suspecting that these forces were to be used against him, endeavored to have Livingston arrested as an aider and abettor of the French and the deposed King James. The son-in-law of Leisler, Jacob Milborne, was commissioned for the reduction of Albany. Upon his arrival before the city, a great number of the inhabitants armed themselves and repaired to the fort, then commanded by Mr. Schuyler, while many others followed the members of the convention to a conference with him at the city hall. In order to win the crowd over to his side, Milborne declaimed much against King James, popery and arbitrary power; but his oratory was lost upon the hearers, who, after several meetings, still adhered to the convention. Milborne drew up a few of his men in line of battle and advanced to within a few paces of the fort with bayonets fixed. Mr. Schuyler had the utmost difficulty to prevent both his own men and the Mohawks, who were then in Albany, and perfectly devoted to his service, from firing upon Milborne's party, which consisted of an inconsiderable number. Under these circumstances, he thought proper to retreat, and soon after departed from Albany. A second expedition in the Spring proved more successful, for he gained possession of the city and fort. No sooner was he in possession of the garrison, than most of the principal members absconded, upon which, their effects were arbitrarily seized and confiscated, which so highly exasperated the sufferers, that their posterity, for a long time, hurled their bitterest invectives against Leisler and his adherents. It was during these intestine troubles and the threatened Indian wars, that Governor Leisler's daughter was in Salem out of the way of danger. The New Englanders were keeping up a petty warfare with the Owenagungas, Ourages and Penocooks. Between these and the Schakook Indians, there was a friendly communication, and the same was suspected of the Mohawks, among whom some of the Owenagungas had taken sanctuary. This led to conferences between commissioners from Boston, Plymouth, Connecticut and other places, for it was essential to the peace of the English colonists to preserve peace and general amnesty with the powerful Five Nations, and hold them as allies against the hostile French in Canada and the Indians of the east. Colonel Henry Sloughter had been commissioned governor of New York, January 4, 1689; but he did not arrive to take possession until 1691, over two years after his commission, when the vessel bearing the new governor, _The Beaver_, arrived in the harbor. Fair historians have acquitted Mr. Leisler of any blame in what others have been pleased to call his usurpation. He was a man not wholly without ambition, yet he was honest and did what he thought right. He had much of the stubbornness as well as honesty of the Netherlands in his composition, and believing himself in the right, determined to persist in it. Jacob Milborne, his English son-in-law, was the more ambitious of the two, and had guided and directed the affair. Leisler was sitting in his house when informed by Milborne that a vessel called _The Beaver_ had arrived, bearing Colonel Sloughter, who purported to have a governor's commission. "Then we will greet him as our governor," said the honest Leisler. "Wait until you know he is not an impostor, and that this is not a trick to seize our fort," cautioned Milborne. Then Leisler, reconsidering the matter, decided to wait. _The Beaver_ brought with it one Ingoldsby, who had a commission as captain. When Ingoldsby appeared, Leisler offered him quarters in the city: "Possession of his majesty's fort is what I demand," Ingoldsby replied, and he issued a proclamation requiring submission. The aristocratic party, which had long been chafing under the rule of the republican uprising under Leisler, thus obtained as a leader one who held a commission from the new sovereign. Leisler, conforming to the original agreement made with his fellow-insurgents, replied that Ingoldsby had produced no order from the king, or from Sloughter, who, it was known had received a commission as governor, and, promising him aid as a military officer, refused to surrender the fort. The troops as they landed were received with all courtesy and accommodation; yet passions ran high, and a shot was fired at them. The outrage was severely reproved by Leisler, who, on March 10th, the day of the landing of the troops issued proclamations and counter proclamations, promising obedience to Sloughter on his arrival. It was on the evening of March 19th, that this profligate, needy, and narrow-minded adventurer, who held the royal commission, arrived in New York, and Leisler at once sent messengers to receive his orders. Leisler's messengers were detained, and next morning he sent the new governor a letter asking him to whom he should surrender the fort. His letter was unheeded, and Sloughter, who had already come to hate the republican Leisler, ordered Ingoldsby to arrest him and all the persons called his council. The prisoners, eight in number, were promptly arraigned before a special court, constituted for the purpose by an ordinance, with inveterate royalists as judges. Six of the inferior insurgents, who made their defence, were convicted of high treason and reprieved. Leisler and Milborne denied to the governor the power to institute a tribunal for judging his predecessor, and appealed to the king. In vain they plead the merit of their zeal for King William, since they had so lately opposed his governor. Leisler in particular attempted to justify his conduct from the standpoint that Lord Nottingham's letter entitled him to act in the capacity of lieutenant-governor; but through ignorance, or sycophancy, the judges, instead of delivering their own opinion on this branch of the prisoner's defence, referred it to the governor and council, praying their opinion, whether that letter, "or any other letters, or papers, in the packet from Whitehall, can be understood, or interpreted, to be and contain any power or direction to Captain Leisler, to take the government of this province upon himself, or that the administration thereupon be holden good in law." Of course the decision was against Leisler, and they were arraigned at the bar of justice for the crime of high treason. On their refusal to plead, they were condemned of high treason as mutes, and sentenced to death. Joseph Dudley of New England, but at this time chief justice of New York, gave it as his opinion that Leisler had no legal authority whatever, while Sloughter wrote: "Certainly, never greater villains lived; but I have resolved to wait for the royal pleasure, if, by any other means than hanging, I can keep the country quiet." Jacob Leisler was tried and condemned early in May, 1691, while Charles Stevens and Adelpha were hastening to New York. Charles, who had heard something of the offence of Governor Leisler, and who, young as he was, had come to realize that royalty yielded nothing to the republican ideas, began to fear the worst. The acts of Leisler had the semblance of popular government, and even the liberal William and Mary had their dread of the people. Charles knew Sloughter by reputation as a narrow-minded, bigoted knave, who would scruple at nothing which tended to elevate him in the eyes of the aristocratic party, of which he was a conspicuous devotee. Charles could offer but little consolation, and, as he contemplated Adelpha's sad future, he asked himself: "Has the wheel of fortune changed its revolutions, and is the sun which has ever shone bright for Adelpha to be clouded? God forbid!" Charles Stevens and Adelpha reached New York on the very day the assembly was convened (May 14th, 1691) to determine the fate of Leisler and Milborne. It was evening, and when they entered the town and the once beautiful home now despoiled, was dark and sad. The weeping mother met her daughter at the door. The character of the assembly was thoroughly royalist. It passed several resolutions against Leisler, especially declaring his conduct at the fort an act of rebellion, and on the 15th of May, the second day of their session and the next after the arrival of Adelpha, Sloughter, in a moment of excitement, assented to the vote of the council, that Leisler and Milborne should be executed. "The house, according to their opinion given, did approve of what his excellency and council had done." [Illustration: Eight men, bearing litters, were at the door. All were dripping with water.] The families of the doomed were notified that on the next day, the 16th of May, 1691, Leisler and Milborne would be hung. The morning of the 16th dawned gloomy and dark. The rain poured in torrents; but Mrs. Alice Leisler and her family, accompanied by Charles, went to bid the doomed men adieu at the jail. Then Charles hurried the weeping women and children home. Great thunder-bolts seemed to rend Manhattan Island. The lightning spread a lurid glare on the sky, and the rain fell in torrents. All of the household knew what was being done, and, falling on their knees, they prayed God for strength. Two hours wore on, and then there came a rap at the door. Charles went and opened it. Eight men, bearing litters, on which were stretched two lifeless forms, were at the door. All were dripping with water. "Come in!" said Charles, and he sprang to seize Adelpha, who had fallen to the floor in a convulsion. CHAPTER XIII. CREDULITY RUN MAD. The weird sisters, hand in hand, Posters of the sea and land, Thus do go about, about; Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine, And thrice again, to make up nine. --Shakespeare. Charles Stevens was detained in New York until early in 1692. First he became involved in trouble through his sympathy with the unfortunate Leisler family and was thrown into prison; but a few days later he was released on bond. Then he lingered awaiting his trial; but the case was finally dismissed, and then he joined an expedition against the Indians on the frontier. He wrote home regularly and never failed to mention Cora in his letter. All the while, Charles was at a loss to decide whether it was Cora or Adelpha who had won his affections. Adelpha's great misfortune and grief only seemed to endear her to him, for the noblest hearts grow more tender with sorrow. Early in 1692, he returned to Salem after an absence of ten months. Great changes were soon to come about. Salem was about to enter upon that career of madness known in history as Salem Witchcraft. There are few portions of ancient or modern history which exhibit stranger or more tragical and affecting scenes than that known as Salem Witchcraft, and few matters of authentic history remain so deeply shrouded in mystery at the present day. The delusion has never been satisfactorily explained, and time seems to obscure rather than throw light upon the subject. At this period, the belief in witchcraft was general throughout Christendom, as is evinced by the existence of laws for the punishment of witches and sorcerers in almost every kingdom, state, province and colony. Persons suspected of being witches, or wizards, were tried, condemned and put to death by the authority of the most enlightened tribunals in Europe. Only a few years before the occurrences in New England, Sir Matthew Hale, a judge highly and justly renowned for the strength of his understanding, the variety of his knowledge and the eminent Christian graces which adorned his character, had, after a long and anxious investigation, adjudged a number of men and women to die for this offence. Only a few rare minds, such as Charles Stevens, living far in advance of the age, were skeptical on the subject of witchcraft. These bold spirits placed themselves in great danger of being "cried out upon" as witches themselves. This delusion had its fountain-head in Salem; but it was by no means confined to this locality. It spread all over the American colonies and, like most superstitions, hovered along the frontier, where it was fostered in the shadow of ignorance and grew in the dark halls of superstition. The author will not deny that there are many, to this day, who attribute what they do not in the light of reason understand, to supernatural agencies. In Virginia, in Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois and Missouri there existed, in their early days, strange stories of witchcraft. If the butter did not form from the milk, some witch was in the churn. If the cattle died of an epidemic, or a disease unknown to the poor science of the day, it was the result of witchcraft. If a child or grown person was afflicted with some strange disease, such as epilepsy, the "jerks," "St. Vitus' dance," "rickets" or other strange nervous complaints, which they could not understand, they at once attributed it to witchcraft. There sprang up a class of people called "witch-doctors" who, it was claimed, had power to dispel the charm and bring the witch to grief. The only way a witch could relieve herself and reestablish her power was to go to the house of the person bewitched and borrow something. As, in those early days, all articles of domestic use were scarce, and neighbors depended on borrowing, many an old lady was amazed to find herself refused, and was wholly unable to account for the sudden coolness of persons, whom she had always loved. Mr. Parris, the fanatic, fraud and schemer, perhaps did more to augment witchcraft, than any other person in the colonies. Parris was ambitious. The circle of young girls, as the reader will remember, first held their séances at his home. Their young nervous systems were so wrought upon, that, at their age in life, they were thrown into spasms resembling epileptic fits. Instead of treating their disease scientifically, as such cases would be treated at present, the parson foolishly declared that they were bewitched. Those children could not have been wholly impostors. They were deceived by the preachers and the zealous, bloodthirsty bigots into actually believing some of the statements they uttered. Their nerves were shattered, their imaginations wrought upon, until they took almost any shape capricious fancy or the evil-minded Parris would dictate. When Charles Stevens arrived in Salem, instead of finding the dread superstition a thing of the past, to be forgotten or remembered only with a sense of shuddering shame, he found that the flame had been fanned to a conflagration. Mr. Parris and Mr. Noyes contrived to preach from their pulpits sermons on protean devils and monsters of the air, until the more credulous of their congregations were almost driven to insanity. One evening, as Parris was passing the home of Goody Vance, she met him at the door, and, with a face blanched with fear and annoyance, said: "Mr. Parris, I am grievously annoyed with a witch in my churn." "What does she do?" he asked. "She prevents the butter from forming, and I have churned until my arms seem as if they would drop off." The parson's face grew grave, and, going to a certain tree, he broke some switches from it and entered the house. "Take the milk from the churn," he said. "Pour it into a skillet and place the skillet on the coals before the fire." This was done, and the astounded housewife, with her numerous children, stood gazing at the pastor, who, with his white, cadaverous face, thin lips and hooked nose, looked as if he might have power over the spirits of darkness. He drew a chair up before the fire and, seating himself, began whipping the milk, saying: "I do this in the name of the Lord," which he repeated with every stroke. [Illustration: At every stroke he repeated, "I do this in the name of the Lord."] Goody Nurse, who was on the best of terms with Goody Vance, had unfortunately broken the spindle of her wheel and, knowing that her neighbor had an extra one, came to borrow it. She was astonished to see their pastor seated before a skillet of milk whipping it with switches. No sooner was her errand made known, than Parris, leaping to his feet, cried: "No! no! lend her nothing, or you will break the spell! Avaunt, vile witch, or I will scourge you until your shoulders are bare and bleeding." Goody Nurse, astonished and terrified, retired, and next Lord's day the incident formed a theme for Mr. Parris' sermon. This was the first sermon Charles had heard since his return. "Mother, I will go no more to hear Mr. Parris," Charles declared, on reaching home. "You must, my son. The laws of the colony compel the attendance on divine worship." "Such laws should be repealed as foolish. Compel one to go to church, to listen to such nonsense!" and Charles hurried away in disgust. Cora had been watching him during his conversation with his mother. He had scarcely been able to speak with her at all since his return. Charles turned toward her as he ceased speaking, and Cora, seeming to dread meeting his eyes, was about to disappear into her room, when he called her: "Cora, don't go away. I must talk with you." "What would you say?" she asked, her heart fluttering in her bosom like a captive bird. "There is much. Let us go down to the brook and sit on the green banks as we used to do." She trembled, hesitated a moment and acquiesced. They went slowly down the path, neither saying a word until the brook was reached. When they were seated on the bank, Charles asked: "Cora, are you still persecuted by Mr. Parris? Does he continue to denounce you?" "He does." "That is an evidence that he is a man of low qualities. And he still assails Goody Nurse?" "Yes, sir. Goody Nurse, Goody Corey, Bishop and Casty have all been cried out upon, and it is not known when they will stop." "This craze has assumed dangerous proportions, Cora." "It has. They are going to law," she answered. "Some are already in jail." "I have heard of it, and, with prejudiced judges and juries and false witnesses, life will be in great peril." "I know it." Then Charles was silent for a moment, listening to the song of a bird in its leafy bower. When the feathered songster had warbled forth his lay and flown to a distant tree on which to try its notes, Charles asked: "Have you seen your father recently?" "He was here two months ago." "Did he want to take you away with him?" "He did; but I could not go. I promised to remain until your return." "Cora, may it not be dangerous so far on the frontier?" "There is danger; but he has secured me a home with the family of Mr. Dustin, where he thinks I will be safe." "Is your father's brother with him?" "He is." "Did they come here together?" "Yes; they are inseparable." "Cora, don't you think there is some mystery about those brothers, which you do not understand?" "I know there is." "Were they both players?" "I believe they once were." "Have you told your father of the persecutions of Mr. Parris?" "Not all." "Why not?" "It would have done no good, and would have caused him unnecessary annoyance," she answered meekly. "Just like you, Cora, always afraid of making some one trouble." Her eyes were on the brooklet and filled with tears, as she remembered how happy Adelpha Leisler had been when at Salem, and how heavily the hand of affliction had fallen upon her. "Charles, were you with her when it happened?" she asked. "I was." "Did you comfort her?" "Such poor words of comfort as one can offer on such occasions, I gave her," he answered. "It was so sad, and she is so good, so kind and so noble. Did she bear up well under her great afflictions?" "As well as one could." "Alas, the fires of affliction are to try the faithful. God gave her strength to bear up under her trials and sufferings." "Her troubles are over, Cora, and ours are but just begun." "What do you mean?" "This cloud of superstition which is settling about us may engulf us in ruin." She made no answer. Cora was very pretty as she sat on the embankment, her eyes upon the crystal stream, gliding onward like a gushing, gleesome child, and he could not but declare her the most beautiful being he had ever seen. Charles Stevens was no coquette. He was not trifling with the heart or happiness of either Cora or Adelpha, and he had never yet spoken a word of love to either. Both had won his sympathy, his esteem and admiration; but, until he had satisfied himself which had in reality won his heart, he would make no avowal to either. Seeing that what he said was calculated to throw a shade of gloom over her, he changed the subject by saying: "Let us not anticipate evil, Cora. Wait until it is upon us." "Spoken like a philosopher," she answered; "but, Charles, if you see evil in the future, why not all go away?" "Where should we go?" "Far to the north and east. My father has found a home in the heart of a great, dense forest. There man is as free as the birds of the air, and nothing can fetter thought or will. No bigoted pastor can say, 'You shall worship God in this fashion;' but all are permitted to worship God as they choose. There are only the friendly skies, the grand old forest and God to judge human actions, instead of narrow-minded people, with false notions of religion." "I could not go, Cora." "Why not?" "This is my home. I know no other. Over in yonder church-yard, sleeps my sainted father. He won this pleasant home from the stern, unyielding wilderness, and I will not be driven from it by a set of false fanatics, who accuse, or may accuse us of impossible crimes." "Charles, if my father builds us a home in the great wilderness, won't you and your mother come and visit with us, until this storm cloud has blown away? I do not ask you to give up your home. I do not ask you to shrink from the defence of it; but a short sojourn abroad cannot be thought to be an abandonment. You should accept our hospitality to afford us an opportunity to repay the debt of gratitude we owe, as well as to secure your mother from an annoyance, which is growing painful." Her argument was very strong and had its weight with Charles. "When do you expect your father?" he asked. "Any time, or no time. He knows not himself when he may come. Poor father; he hath labored arduously to subdue the forest and build us a home. We had nothing,--we were slaves." "But slaves no longer, Cora." "Why not? Our term has not expired." "King William has pardoned all the participators in Monmouth's rebellion." For a moment, she was overwhelmed with joy and, clapping her hands, gazed toward heaven, murmuring: "Oh my God, I thank thee!" but, anon, the reaction came. The pardon for participation in Monmouth's rebellion was granted; but the subsequent crime--the flight from the master and the slaying of the overseer--could not be cured by the king's pardon to the Monmouth rebels. With a gasping sob, she said: "But that other--that awful thing?" "What, Cora?" "The flight, the pursuit and the death of the overseer. Oh, Charles, we can never be safe, while that hangs over us." Charles Stevens gazed upon the pretty face bathed in tears, beheld the agony which seemed to overwhelm her, and his soul went out toward the poor maid. He had little consolation to offer; but his fertile brain was not wholly barren of resources. "Cora, don't give way to despair," he said. "What your father did was right and justifiable, though technically the law may take a different view. I have a relative living in Virginia, wealthy and influential. I shall write to him to procure a pardon for your father." "I know him. The good man, Robert Stevens, who so kindly gave us a home and aided us to escape. He will do all he can for us." "He is rich and powerful, and I believe he can ultimately procure a pardon for Mr. Waters." Having consoled her, they rose and returned to the house. That same evening, Charles Stevens met John Bly near the house of his mother. "How have you been, John?" Charles asked. "This is the first time I have seen you since my return." "I am as well as one can be who has been ridden twenty leagues," Bly answered. "Ridden twenty leagues?" cried Charles Stevens in amazement. "Pray what do you mean?" "I was turned into a horse last night and ridden twenty leagues during the darkness, and I am sore and almost exhausted now." Charles laughed and passed on. "I verily believe that all are going mad," he thought. As he went away, he heard Bly say: "Verily, if you doubt that this one Martin is a witch, fall but once in her power, and you will give ear to what I have said of her." Next day he met John Kembal, a woodman. Kembal had his axe on his shoulder, and his face was very pale. "Charles, why did you not tarry in the west?" he asked. "Why came you back to this land most accursed of devils." "John Kembal, have you, too, gone mad over this delusion of witchcraft?" asked Charles. "Charles, verily, you have forgotten that the Scriptures say that he that hath eyes let him see, and he that hath ears let him hear. Thank God, I have both eyes and ears, and I have seen and heard, though I would that I had not." "What have you seen, John Kembal?" Charles asked. "I will tell you without delay; but I can but pause to thank God with every breath that she can no longer do me injury, seeing she is in prison and chains." "Whom do you accuse?" "Susanna Martin." "What harm has she done you?" "Listen, and I will tell you all that I know myself. Susanna Martin, the accused, upon a causeless disgust, did threaten me, about a certain cow of mine, that she should never do me any more good, and it came to pass accordingly; for, soon after, the cow was found dead on the dry ground, without any distemper to be discerned upon her; upon which I was followed with a strange death upon more of my cattle, whereof I lost to the value of thirty pounds." "Perchance, some disease broke out among them," suggested Charles. "Nay, nay; do not forge that excuse for this creature of darkness. I have more to tell. Being desirous to furnish myself with a dog, I applied myself to buy one of this Martin, who had a female with whelps in her house; but she not letting me have my choice, I said I would supply myself at one Blezdel's, whereupon I noticed that she was greatly displeased. Having marked a puppy at Blezdel's, I met George Martin, the husband of Susanna Martin, who asked me: "'Will you not have one of my wife's puppies?' and I answered: "'No; I have got one at Blezdel's, which I like better.' "The same day one Edmond Eliot, being at Martin's house, heard George Martin relate to his wife that I had been at Blezdel's and had bought a puppy. Whereupon Susanna Martin flew into a great rage and answered: "'If I live, I'll give him puppies enough!' "Within a few days after, I was coming out of the woods, when there arose a little black cloud in the northwest, and I immediately felt a force upon me, which made me not able to avoid running upon the stumps of trees that were before me, albeit I had a broad, plain cart-way before me; but though I had my axe on my shoulder, to endanger me in my falls, I could not forbear going out of my way to tumble over the stumps, where the trees had been cut away. When I came below the meeting-house, there appeared unto me a little thing like a puppy, of a darkish color, and it shot backward and forward between my legs. I had the courage to use all possible endeavors of cutting it with my axe; but I could not hit it. The puppy gave a jump from me and went, as to me it seemed, into the ground.[C] [Footnote C: See Cotton Mather's "Wonders of the Invisible World," p. 144.] [Illustration: "Its motions were quicker than those of my axe."] "On going a little further, there appeared unto me a black puppy, somewhat bigger than the first, but as black as a coal. Its motions were quicker than those of my axe; it flew at my belly, and away; then at my throat; so, over my shoulder one way, and then over my shoulder another way. My heart now began to fail me, and I thought the dog would have torn my throat out; but I recovered myself and called upon God in my distress; and, naming the name of Jesus Christ, it vanished away at once." Charles Stevens tried to argue with Bly that he had had an attack of blind staggers, and that the dog was only an optical delusion; but he could in no way convince him that it was not a reality, and that he was not bewitched. According to Mr. Bancroft, New England, like Canaan, had been settled by fugitives. Like the Jews, they had fled to a wilderness. Like the Jews, they had looked to heaven for a light to lead them on. Like the Jews, they had heathen for their foes, and they derived their highest legislation from the Jewish code. Cotton Mather said, "New England being a country whose interests are remarkably inwrapped in ecclesiastical circumstances, ministers ought to concern themselves in politics." Cotton Mather and Mr. Parris did concern themselves in politics, and the latter, being unscrupulous and ambitious as well as fanatical, caused hundreds of unfortunate people to mourn. The circle of children who had been meeting at the house of Mr. Parris began to perform wonders. In the dull life of the country, the excitement of the proceedings of the "circle" was welcome, no doubt, and it was always on the increase. The human mind requires amusement, as the human body requires food, exercise and rest, and when healthful and innocent amusements are denied, resort is had to the low and vicious. Mr. Parris, who preached sermons against the evils of the theatre and excommunicated the child of an actor, fostered in his own house an amusement as diabolical and dangerous as has ever been known. Results of that circle were wonderful. Whatever trickery there might be--and, no doubt, there was plenty; whatever excitement to hysteria; whatever actual sharpening of common faculties, it is clear that there was more; and those who have given due and dispassionate attention to the process of mesmerism and its effects can have no difficulty in understanding the reports handed down of what these young creatures did and said and saw, under peculiar conditions of the nervous system. When the physicians of the district could see no explanation of the ailments of the afflicted children "but the evil hand," they, with one accord, came to the conclusion that their afflictions were through the agencies of Satan. Convulsions and epilepsy are among the many mysteries which medical science has not mastered to this day, and one cannot wonder that the doctors two centuries ago should declare the afflicted ones bewitched. Then came the inquiry as to who had stricken the children, and the readiest means that occurred was to ask this question of the children themselves. At first they refused to disclose any names; but there was soon an end to any such delicacy. The first prominent symptoms occurred in November, 1691, and the first public examination of witches took place March 1st, 1692, just before the return of Charles Stevens from New York. One among the first arrested was Sarah Good, a weak, ignorant, poor, despised woman, whose equally weak and ignorant husband had abandoned her, leaving her to the mercy of evil tongues. This ignorant woman was taken to jail, and, shortly after, her child, little Dorcas, only four years old, was also arrested and imprisoned in chains on charge of witchcraft. All this met the approval of Mr. Parris, whose pale, thin face glowed with triumph as he declared: "Now is the coming of the Lord, and the consumption of the fire-brands of hell." No wonder Charles Stevens was serious. Over twenty people were in prison on charge of witchcraft, among them an Irish woman, a Roman Catholic, hated more on account of her religion than any suspicion of evil against her. She was among the first to hang. Parris, the wild-eyed fanatic, swinging his arms about, walked up and down the village, crying against the evil spirits of the air and longing to get his clutches on the vile actor, who had dared enter the consecrated village of Salem. One evening Mr. Waters returned as mysteriously as he had disappeared. His daughter was greatly rejoiced to see him and, after the joy of the first greeting was over, told of all that was transpiring and of the threats of Mr. Parris. "You must go away," he said. "When?" she asked. "On the morrow." Charles had a short talk with Mr. Waters, and arrangements were made for the departure of Cora on the morrow. Mr. Waters retired late that night to his room. As he was in the act of undressing, he became conscious that a face was pressed against the window. He stood in the dark corner where he could scarce be seen. He held a pistol in his hand until the face disappeared from the window, and creeping to it, looked out. There stood a man in the broad glare of the moon. He had only to glance at his tall form and his ruffian features to recognize him as the brother of the overseer whom he had shot in Virginia. For ten minutes Mr. Waters did not move, but kept his eyes riveted on the man, who, instinct and reason told him, was an enemy. At last the man retired down the path under the hill. Mr. Waters hurriedly wrote a few lines on a scrap of paper, with only the moon for his candle, and, folding the letter, addressed it to his daughter and laid it on his pillow. Then he opened the window and leaped out to the ground. He followed the man under the hill, where he found him in conversation with three other men, Mr. Parris, John Bly and Louder. He was near enough to hear what they said and catch their plans; but he did not wait to listen. As he was creeping among the bushes, a man suddenly rose before him. His dark, tawny skin, his blanket and features indicated that he was an aborigine. He had seen the white men under the hill, and he told Mr. Waters that he had ten braves at hand. "Tell them to do no one harm, Oracus," said Mr. Waters. "I have never harmed mankind, save in defence, and, God willing, I never will. I am going away." The Indian silently bowed and disappeared into the forest. Mr. Waters paused under a large oak tree and gazed at the house where his daughter was sleeping so peacefully; then he went away to the great north woods. CHAPTER XIV. THE FATE OF GOODY NURSE. Oh! lives there, Heaven, beneath thy dread expanse, One hopeless, dark idolator of chance, Content to feed, with pleasures unrefined The lukewarm passions of a lowly mind? --Campbell. Charles Stevens was sleeping soundly, dreaming of Cora and peace, when there came a rap at the outer door. He rose and, but half-dressed, proceeded to open it. Four tall, dark men stood without. By the aid of the moon, he recognized Mr. Parris, Bly and Louder. "Is Mr. Waters here?" asked Mr. Parris. "He is asleep in his room," Charles answered. "Awake him. This good man from Virginia wants to see him." Charles turned away and went to Mr. Waters' room. The door was ajar, and, entering, he found the apartment vacant. An open window showed by what means Mr. Waters had made his escape. Charles hastened to inform the nocturnal visitors, and a scene ensued that can be as well imagined as described. Charles was upbraided for aiding a criminal to escape. Mr. Joel Martin, the brother of the overseer shot in Virginia, was enraged that his brother's slayer should, after years of search, be discovered only to escape his clutches, while Mr. Parris, with assumed piety declared: "It is ever thus, when one covenants with the devil. An actor in the theatres taken to the home and family of those claiming to be Christians. Verily, I am not surprised that he is also a murderer. When one lets go his hold on the Lord, there can be no crime to which he will not descend." The household was roused, and Cora was informed of her father's narrow escape. Mr. Martin from Virginia had a requisition from that colony for his arrest. She wept, but said not a word. When the disappointed officers went away, Charles sought to comfort her; but she answered: "Cruel fate seems to have doomed me to misery, Charles. Father cannot return; I cannot escape, and I feel that Mr. Parris is drawing a net about me, which will entangle my feet." "Trust in God, and all is well!" Charles answered. Often, in their darkest hours, her pious father had offered the same advice, for he was a firm believer in divine intervention in human affairs. Next day a daughter of Goody Nurse came to the house, weeping as if her heart would break. "What is the matter, Sarah?" asked Mrs. Stevens. "Mother is arrested!" sobbed the young woman. "Arrested!" "Yes." "For what charge?" Charles asked. "For being a witch. A warrant has been sworn out against her, and she was taken away this morning." Here the unfortunate young woman broke down and sobbed in silence. "Where was she taken?" asked Mrs. Stevens. "To jail and put in irons, for a witch must be put in irons. It is charged that she hath bewitched Abigail Williams and the other children of Mr. Parris' circle." Were Mr. Parris a creation of fiction and not a real character of history, no doubt the critic would say he was overdrawn; but Samuel Parris was a living, breathing man, or a fiend in human form. He had a large following, and was spoken of as our beloved pastor. Mr. George Bancroft, America's greatest historian, says:[D] [Footnote D: Bancroft's "History of the United States", vol. ii., p. 256.] "The delusion, but for Parris, would have languished. Of his own niece, the girl of eleven years of age, he demanded the names of the devil's instruments, who bewitched the band of 'the afflicted,' and then became at once informer and witness. In those days, there was no prosecuting officer, and Parris was at hand to question his Indian servants and others, himself prompting their answers and acting as recorder to the magistrates. The recollection of the old controversy in the parish could not be forgotten; and Parris, moved by personal malice as well as blind zeal, 'stifled the accusation of some,' such is the testimony of the people of his own village, and, at the same time, 'vigilantly promoting the accusation of others,' was 'the beginning and procurer of the afflictions of Salem village and country.' Martha Corey, who, on her examination in the meeting-house, before a throng, with a firm spirit, alone, against them all, denied the presence of witchcraft, was committed to prison. Rebecca Nurse, likewise a woman of purest life, an object of special hatred of Parris, resisted the company of accusers, and was committed. And Parris, filling his prayers with the theme, made the pulpit ring with it. 'Have not I chosen you twelve,'--such was his text,--'and one of you is a devil?' At this, Sarah Cloyce, sister to Rebecca Nurse, rose up and left the meeting-house, and she, too, was cried out upon and sent to prison." Mrs. Stevens, her son and Cora Waters tried to soothe the fears of the poor young maid, who, in her hour of affliction, childlike, had flown to her friends with her tale of woe. "I will go at once and denounce Mr. Parris for the part he has played in this!" cried Charles, starting from the house. At the little gate, he was overtaken by Cora, who, laying her hand on his arm, said: "Don't go, Charles. Don't leave the house while in this heat of passion." "Cora, I cannot endure that hypocrite longer. He is a devil, not a man, to carry his malice so far." "But reflect, Charles. What you might say in the heat of your anger can do poor Goody Nurse no good." "It will be a relief to me." "No; it may engender future trouble. This is a trying hour; the danger is great; let us take time for deliberation." He was persuaded by Cora to say nothing at that time and returned to the house. To the sorrowing daughter had been administered such consolation as faithful, loving friends could offer, and she went home hoping that her unfortunate mother might yet escape the wrath of Mr. Parris. "It is all the work of Samuel Parris," declared Mrs. Stevens. "Because Goody Nurse opposed his ministry, he seeks revenge." "Parris is an unworthy man," Charles declared. Before he could say more, Cora Waters, who had posted herself as a sentry at the door said: "Here comes Ann Putnam." At mention of this woman's name, both Charles and his mother became silent. She was the mother of one of the afflicted children, and was herself of high nervous temperament, undisciplined in mind, and an absolute devotee to her pastor. She was at this time about thirty years of age, with blue eyes, brown hair and face fair and round. As she entered the door, almost out of breath, she cried: "I come, Goody Stevens, to be the bearer of what I trust will be welcome tidings. Goody Nurse hath been arrested and sent to prison for her grievously tormenting the family of Mr. Parris and myself." "Can you suspect that such news will be welcome tidings in this home?" cried Mrs. Stevens. "Ann Putnam, truly you must believe that I am unworthy to be called woman, if you think I can rejoice at the downfall of that good woman." "Good woman!" shrieked Ann Putnam, stamping her foot on the floor with such force as to make the house quiver. "Good woman! She is a witch! She opposed our beloved pastor his stipend; she wished to remove him, and because she failed, she now assails his household with her witchcraft. Oh, vile creature, I would I had never seen her!" "Ann Putnam, you are deluded." "Deluded!" shrieked Ann Putnam, her eyes flashing with fire. "Could you all but see me in my sore afflictions, could you but know the fits I have, and witness the suffering of her victims, you would not call it delusion." "Ann Putnam, Mr. Parris has so wrought upon your imagination, that you are insane." At the attempt to impute anything evil to her beloved pastor, Ann Putnam's rage knew no bounds, and, in a voice choking with wrath, she declared that Mr. Parris was the most saintly man living. "His zeal for the cause of Christ hath brought down upon him the wrath of the worldly minded. He is a saint--a glorious saint, and because he denounced Cora Waters for being the child of a player, you would malign him." "Ann Putnam," interrupted Charles Stevens, "you have no right to impugn the motives of my mother, nor to assail our guest. The zeal of Mr. Parris has made a monster of him. He is a wicked, cruel, revengeful man, rather than a follower of the meek and lowly Lamb of God." "I will not stay where my blessed pastor is spoken so ill of!" declared Ann Putnam, and she bounded out of the door, shaking the dust off her shoes. At the gate, she paused and held her fist in the air, and at the height of her masculine voice screamed: "I denounce you! I cry out against you, Hattie Stevens! I will to do no more with you!" and having performed that wonderful act of discarding a former friend, she turned about and hurried over the hill. "Charles, I am sorry you and your mother angered her," said Cora. "Why, Cora?" he asked. "She can do us ill." "Ann Putnam is an evil woman and a fit follower of such a man as Parris," declared Charles. "My mother did a noble act in denouncing him." "It is time, Charles," interrupted Cora. "I feel, I know that if evil befalls you, I am the cause. I must go away. I cannot remain here to prove the ruin of those who befriended me. I must go away." "Where would you go?" "I know not where; but I will go anywhere, so that I may not prove the ruin of my friends. The wild heathen in the forest could not be more cruel than these people." "Cora, you shall not go!" cried Charles. "No, you shall not. I will protect you and mother. I have friends, friends true and strong, friends of whom they little dream. They live in the forest and will come to my aid by the hundreds to fight my battles." "Do you mean the Indians?" "Yes. Two years ago I saved the life of Oracus, a young chief, and made him my friend. An Indian, once a friend, is the truest of friends. Oracus and his warriors would die for me." "Do not appeal to the Indians, if you can avoid it," the girl plead. Charles assured her if she did go away, it would not remove the wrath of the minister from them, and she decided to remain. Mr. Parris hated Rebecca Nurse more than any other person in Salem. He was now about to accomplish his designs. Until the day of trial, Rebecca Nurse lay in jail, with great, heavy fetters, which she could scarcely carry, upon her. Her husband, family and friends did all in their power to procure her release on bond; but witchcraft was not a bailable offence. They tried to secure mercy for the old woman from Mr. Parris; but he was inexorable. When Mr. Parris, a few months before, was publicly complaining of neglect in the matter of firewood for the parsonage, and of lukewarmness on the part of the hearers of his services, "Landlord Nurse" was a member of the committee who had to deal with him, and he and his relatives were among the majority, who were longing for Mr. Parris' apparently inevitable departure. So when, through the machinations of the pastor, the good woman was arrested, they appealed to him in vain for mercy. The meeting-house, in which the trial was held, was crowded with spectators. Neighbor jostled neighbor, and terrible, awe-inspiring whispers ran over the throng. Prayer was offered, and the court opened, and Rebecca Nurse, weak and sick, old and infirm as she was, was made to stand up before that tribunal to plead to the charge of witchcraft. When her son would have supported his aged mother, he was driven away. Mr. Parris was the first witness called. The law of evidence, or at least the practice in Salem at that time, was quite different from the present. Hearsay testimony was freely admitted in the case of Goody Nurse. Mr. Parris stated that he was called to see a certain person who was sick. Mercy Lewis was sent for. She was struck dumb on entering the chamber. She was asked to hold up her hand, if she saw any of the witches afflicting the patient. Presently she held up her hand, then fell into a trance. While coming to herself, she said that she saw the spectres of Goody Nurse and Goody Carrier having hold of the head of the sick man. The testimony of Mr. Parris was given in a calm and deliberate manner calculated to impress the jury with truth. Never did an assassin whet his dagger with more coolness or with more malice drive it to the heart of his victim, than did this sanctimonious villain weave the net of ruin about his victims. Thomas Putnam, the husband of Ann Putnam, stated that both his wife and child were bewitched and had most grievous fits, all of which they charged to Goody Nurse. He described his wife as being sorely attacked and striving violently with her arms and legs, and presently she would begin to converse with Good-wife Nurse, saying: "Goody Nurse, begone! begone! begone! Are you not ashamed, a woman of your profession, to afflict a poor creature so? What hurt did I ever do you in my life? You have but two years to live, and then the devil will torment your soul, for this your name is blotted out of God's book, and it shall never be put in God's book again. Begone! For shame! Are you not afraid of what is coming upon you? I know what will make you afraid, the wrath of an angry God. I am sure that will make you afraid. Begone! Do not torment me. I know what you would have; but it is out of your reach; it is clothed with the white robes of Christ's righteousness." After this, she seemed to dispute with the apparition about a particular text of Scripture, while she kept her eyes closed all the time. The apparition seemed to deny it, and she said she was sure there was such a text, and she would tell it, and then the shape would be gone. Said she: "I am sure you cannot stand before that text." Then she was sorely afflicted, her mouth drawn on one side, and her body strained for about a minute, and then she said: "I will tell. I will tell, it is,--it is,--it is the third chapter of the Revelations." Such stuff could not in this day be admitted in any intelligent court of justice. Ann Putnam, the wife of Thomas Putnam, was next to testify against Goody Nurse. She said: "On March 18th, 1692, being wearied out in helping to tend my poor afflicted child and maid, about the middle of the afternoon I lay me down on the bed to take a little rest; and immediately I was almost pressed and choked to death, that, had it not been for the mercy of a gracious God and the help of those that were with me, I could not have lived many moments; and presently I saw the apparition of Martha Corey, who did torture me so, as I cannot express, ready to tear me to pieces, and then departed from me a little while; but before I could recover strength, or well take breath, the apparition of Rebecca Nurse fell upon me again with dreadful tortures and hellish temptations to go along with her, and she brought to me a little red book in her hand, and a black pen, urging me vehemently to write in her book; and several times that day she did most grievously torture me, almost ready to kill me. And on that same day Martha Corey and Rebecca Nurse, the wife of Francis Nurse senior, did both torture me, with tortures such as no tongue can express." "Did you suffer from Rebecca Nurse again?" the witness was asked. "Yes." "When?" "On divers times. On the 20th, which was the Sabbath day. After that, she came and sat upon my breast and did sorely torment me and threaten to bear the soul out of my body, blasphemously denying the blessed God, and the power of the Lord Jesus Christ to save my soul, and denying several passages of Scripture, which I told her of, to repel her hellish temptations." The afflicted children were present, and when the unfortunate prisoner, tired and sick, bent her head, they began to scream and bent their heads also. When she gazed at Abigail Williams, the girl was seized with a convulsion, and so were the others, so that the trial had to be suspended for a few minutes, until quiet was restored. Charles Stevens, who was present, remarked, loud enough to be heard: "If they had a stick well laid about their backs, I trow it would cure them of such devil's capers." "Have a care, Charles. Take heed of your hasty speech," said a by-stander. Mrs. Putnam, fearful that her first deposition would not convict the woman, who had dared speak boldly against her beloved pastor, again took the stand and testified: "Once, when Rebecca Nurse's apparition appeared unto me, she declared that she had killed Benjamin Houlton, John Friller, and Rebecca Shepherd, and that she and her sister Cloyse, and Edward Bishop's wife, had killed John Putnam's child. Immediately there did appear to me six children in winding-sheets, which called me aunt, which did most grievously affright me; and they told me they were my sister Baker's children of Boston, and that Goody Nurse, Mistress Corey of Charlestown and an old deaf woman at Boston murdered them, and charged me to go and tell these things to the magistrates, or else they would tear me to pieces, for their blood did cry for vengeance. Also there appeared to me my own sister Bayley and three of her children in winding-sheets, and told me that Goody Nurse had murdered them." This evidence was followed by the afflicted children bearing testimony to being grievously tormented by defendant, who came sometimes in the shape of a black cat, a dog, or a pig, and who was sometimes accompanied by a black man. Louder next related his experience of being changed to a horse and ridden to a witches' ball, and of seeing Rebecca Nurse ride through the air on a broomstick. The West Indian negro man John, the husband of Tituba and servant of Mr. Parris, was next put on the witness stand. The magistrate asked him: "John, who hurt you?" "Goody Nurse first, and den Goody Corey." "What did she do to you?" "She brought de book to me." "John, tell the truth. Who hurt you? Have you been hurt?" "The first was a gentleman I saw." "But who hurt you next?" "Goody Nurse. She choke me and brought me de book." "Where did she take hold of you?" "Upon my throat, to stop my breath." "What did this Goody Nurse do?" "She pinch me until de blood came." At this, Ann Putnam had a fit and was carried out. Abigail Williams was called to the stand and asked: "Abigail Williams, did you see a company at Mr. Parris' house eat and drink?" "Yes sir; that was their sacrament." "How many were there?" "About forty. Goody Cloyse and Goody Good were their deacons." "What was it?" "They said it was our blood, and they had it twice that day." "Have you seen a white man?" "Yes sir, a great many times." "What sort of a man was he?" "A fine, grave man, and when he came, he made all the witches to tremble." "Did you see the party of witches at Deacon Ingersol's?" "I did." "Who was there?" "Goody Cloyse, Goody Corey, Goody Nurse and Goody Good." Then the examining magistrate turned to the old, infirm and unfortunate prisoner, and asked: "What do you say, Goody Nurse, to these things?" The old, sick woman, summoning up all her energies, answered: "I take God to be my witness, that I know nothing of it, no more than the child unborn." The jury did not consider the evidence strong enough for hanging an old lady, who had been the ornament of their church and the glory of their village and its society, and they brought in a verdict of "not guilty." The momentary rejoicing of the triumphant defendants was drowned by the howls of the afflicted and the upbraiding of Mr. Parris. One judge declared himself dissatisfied; another promised to have her tried anew; and the chief justice pointed out a phrase used by the prisoner, which might be made to signify that she was one of the accused gang in guilt, as well as in jeopardy. It might really seem as if the authorities were all scheming together, when we see the ingenuity and persistence with which they discussed the three words "of our company," as used by the accused. The poor old woman offered an explanation, which ought to have been satisfactory. "I intended no otherwise than as they were prisoners with us, and therefore did then, and yet do judge them not legal evidence against their fellow-prisoners. And I, being something hard of hearing and full of grief, none informing me how the court took up my words, therefore had no opportunity to declare what I intended when I said they were of our company." The foreman of the jury would have taken a favorable view of this matter, and have allowed full consideration, while other jurymen were eager to recall the mistake of the verdict; but the prisoner's silence from failing to hear, when she was expected to explain, turned the foreman against her, and caused him to declare: "Whereupon these words were to me a principal evidence against her." Still it was too monstrous to hang the poor old woman. After her condemnation, the governor reprieved her, probably on the ground of the illegality of setting aside the first verdict of the jury, in the absence of any new evidence; but Mr. Parris, the power behind the people, caused such an outcry against executive clemency to be raised, that the governor withdrew his reprieve. Next Sunday after the sentence, there was a scene in the church, the record of which was afterward annotated by the church members in grief and humiliation. After the sacrament, by a vote, it was unanimously agreed, that sister Nurse, being convicted as a witch by the court, should be excommunicated in the afternoon of the same day. Charles Stevens, impelled by a morbid curiosity, went to the church that afternoon. The place was thronged. Parris, with the triumphant gleam of a devil on his hypocritical features, was in the pulpit with the elders. The deacons presided below. The sheriff and his officers brought in the witch and led her up the broad aisle, her chains clanking as she stepped, and her poor old limbs scarcely able to bear their weight. As she stood in the middle of the aisle, the Reverend Mr. Noyes pronounced her sentence of expulsion from the church on earth and from all hope of salvation hereafter. Having freely given her soul to Satan by a seven years' service for diabolical powers, she was delivered over to him forever. In conclusion, Reverend Mr. Noyes said: "And now, vile woman, having sold yourself to the Devil, go to your master amid the hottest flames of hell!" She was aware that every eye regarded her with horror and hate, unapproached under any circumstances; but she was able to sustain it. She was still calm and at peace that day, and during the fortnight of final waiting. When the fatal day of execution came, she traversed the streets of Salem, between the houses in which she had been an honored guest, and surrounded by well-known faces, and then there was the hard, hard task, for her aged limbs, of climbing the rocky and steep path on Witches' Hill to the place where the gibbets stood in a row, and the hangman was waiting for her. Sarah Good and six others of whom Salem chose to be rid that day went with her. [Illustration: The sheriff brought the witch up the broad aisle, her chains clanking as she stepped.] It was the 19th of July, 1692, when, at a signal, all eight swung off into eternity, and Reverend Mr. Noyes, in his zeal, pointing to the swaying bodies, said: "There hang eight fire-brands of hell!" Mr. Parris, unable to conceal his triumph, declared these the most holy words ever uttered by lips not divine. The bodies were put away on the hill like so many dead dogs; but during the silent watches of the night, Charles Stevens and the sons and grandsons of Rebecca Nurse disinterred her and brought her remains home where a coffin had been prepared. Mrs. Stevens and Cora Waters dressed the body in most becoming robes. All kissed the cold dead face of one they loved, as she lay in a rear room, the windows blinded and a guard outside. Then the body was hurriedly buried in a grave prepared in the field, where soon after the afflicted husband slept at her side. Considering such horrible events, one can but conclude that superstition was having full sway. CHAPTER XV. "YOUR MOTHER A WITCH." 'Tis a bleak wild, but green and bright In the summer warmth and the mid-day light, There's the hum of the bee and the chirp of the wren, And the dash of the brook from the older glen. There's the sound of the bell from the scattered flock, And the shade of the beach lies cool on the rock, And fresh from the west is the free-wind's breath. There is nothing here that speaks of death. --Bryant. Shortly after the arrest and incarceration of Goodwife Nurse, Reverend Deodat Lawson, an eminent Boston divine, came to Salem village. All land travel at that time was on horseback. He lodged at the house of Nathaniel Ingersol near the home of the minister Mr. Parris. The appearance of a foreigner in the village was at once the signal for making a new convert, and the afflicted put themselves on exhibition to convince him that evil spirits were abroad. He had been but a short time at the house of Ingersol, when Captain Walcut's daughter Mary came to see him and speak with him. She greeted him with a smile, and hoped he had had a pleasant journey. It was now growing late, and she stood in the door bidding all good-evening, preparatory to going home. Suddenly the girl gave utterance to a wild shriek and leaped into the house, holding her wrist in her left hand. "What is the matter?" asked Mr. Lawson. "I am bitten on the wrist," she cried. "Surely you cannot be bitten, for I have seen nothing to bite you." "Nevertheless, I am bitten. It is a witch that hath bitten me." The candle had been burning all the while in the apartment, and Mr. Lawson knew that no one could have been in the room without his knowledge. "Some one hath grievously bitten me!" the girl sobbed. Mr. Lawson seized the candle and, holding it to her wrist, saw apparently the marks of teeth, both upper and lower set, on each side of her wrist. He was lost in wonder and, placing the candle on the mantel, remarked: "It is a mystery." "Yea, verily it is," Lieutenant Ingersol answered; "but you have not seen the beginning of the wonders of witchcraft in this village. Satan surely hath been loosed for a little season." "I have heard much of the sore afflictions of the children at the home of Mr. Parris," remarked Mr. Lawson. "And they are sorely afflicted, as I can bear testimony. After tea we will walk over to his house." Mr. Lawson assented, and Mary Walcut was sent home. After an early tea, Mr. Lawson went to the parsonage, which was but a short distance. Mr. Parris met them at the door. His white, cadaverous face, prominent cheek bones, aquiline nose, piercing eyes, and wild, disheveled hair giving him a strange, weird appearance. He greeted Reverend Mr. Lawson warmly and thanked him for coming all the way from Boston to preach for him next Lord's Day. "I am so sorely tried with my many afflictions, that I cannot compose my mind for sermonizing." "I have heard somewhat of the afflictions and troubles that beset you," Rev. Deodat Lawson answered. "Verily you cannot have heard more than has occurred. I am maligned, misunderstood and beset everywhere by the enemies of God." "Meet it with prayer and humiliation," answered Mr. Lawson. "I do--I do--and, verily, the Lord is making my enemies my footstool. Many are already in prison, and many more will yet go to the gallows." The pastor gnashed his teeth in silent rage, while his eyes gleamed with hate. "How are the afflicted children?" asked Mr. Lawson. "No better. Abigail come hither." Abigail Williams, the niece of the pastor, came from an adjoining room. She was a girl of twelve, with a fair face, but cunning eyes, which deprived her of the innocence of childhood. Mr. Lawson at once entered into conversation with her, but had not proceeded far, when she uttered a shriek and, turning her face to the ceiling, whirled about in a circle, while her eyes, rolling back in her head, snapped like flashes of light. Her mouth was drawn to the left side of her face and her whole frame convulsively jerked till she fell to the floor, where she writhed and struggled, and blood-stained froth issued from her mouth, while Mr. Lawson gazed upon her appalled. Then she sprang to her feet and hurried violently to and fro through the room in spite of the efforts to hold her. Sometimes she made motions as if she would fly, reaching her arms up as high as she could, and bringing them down at her side, crying: "Whish! whish! whish!" Presently she began talking in a strange, hysterical and half inaudible manner. "There is Goodwife Nurse!" she cried. "Do you not see her? Why, there she stands!" and the girl pointed to a corner of the room that was vacant. Her eyes seemed riveted on some object that kept moving about. After a short silence, Abigail Williams said: "There, she is offering me the book to sign; but I won't take it, Goody Nurse! I won't! I won't! I won't take it! I do not know what book it is. I am sure it is not God's book. It is the Devil's book, for aught I know." Then she remained a moment with her eyes closed and arms folded across her breast, after which she ran to the fire, and began to throw fire-brands about the house, and run into the fireplace, against the back of the wall, as if she would go up the chimney. They caught hold of her and pulled her out. "It is nothing uncommon," Mr. Parris explained. "In other fits, the children have sought to throw themselves into the fire." Mr. Lawson did not tarry long at the house of the pastor; but returned to the home of Lieut. Ingersol. When Sunday came, Mr. Lawson went to the church to preach. Several of the afflicted people were "at meeting," for it was thought proper that the afflicted should be in the house of God. So long as one was able to go to church, they were taken, regardless of any mental affection they might have. Mrs. Pope, Goodwife Bibber, Abigail Williams, Mary Walcut, Mary Lewes and Doctor Grigg's maid, all of whom were persons bewitched, are reported by reliable historians as being present at this "Lord's Day service." There was also present Goodwife Corey, who was subsequently arrested for a witch. While at prayer, Mr. Lawson was interrupted by shrieks and struggles on the part of the afflicted, and a voice near said: "Fits!" He kept on praying for the Lord to relieve them of their torments, while Charles Stevens, who was in the house, declared that a whip would relieve them. After the prayer, a psalm was sung, as usual, and then Abigail Williams, turning to the preacher, said in a loud, coarse voice: "Now stand up and name your text!" After he had named his text, she said: "It is a long text." He had scarcely begun his sermon, when Mrs. Pope, one of the afflicted women, bawled out: "Now, there is enough of that." "These mad people ought to be kept away from the house of worship," declared Charles Stevens to a neighbor. Rev. Mr. Lawson, unaccustomed to these interruptions, was greatly annoyed and had to pause frequently in his sermon. Goodwife Corey was present at the time, and Abigail Williams, in the midst of the sermon, cried out: "Look! look, where Goodwife Corey sits on the beam, suckling her yellow bird betwixt her fingers!" At this, Ann Putnam, the daughter of Thomas Putnam, said: "There is a yellow bird sitting on Mr. Lawson's hat, where it hangs on the pin in the pulpit." Those who sat nearest the girls tried to restrain them from speaking aloud; but it was in vain; for, despite all precaution, they would occasionally blurt out some ridiculous nonsense, which the people attributed to the results of witchcraft. "Charles Stevens, what say you, now that your eyes have witnessed these abominations?" said John Bly. "I say, if I had my way, I would cure them," answered the youth. "How would you, pray?" Bly asked. "With a good whip about their shoulders." "Beware, Charles Stevens, how you speak so lightly of these afflictions, lest you bring on yourself the same condemnation of those on Witches' Hill." There are some spirits so bold, that they overawe and intimidate even an enraged populace. Martin Luther's very audacity saved him, on more than one occasion, and something like the same spirit enabled Charles Stevens to overcome or overawe the deluded populace of Salem. A few days after the execution of Goody Nurse, he was passing the meeting house, when he was accosted by the West Indian negro, John. "You not believe in witches?" said John. "No." "Goody Nurse brought me de book." "John, I believe you lied. I believe you have perjured yourself and sent your soul to endless torment," answered Charles Stevens. John was a cunning rascal and thought to give him a proof positive of the powers of witchcraft. He fell down in a fit, and Charles applied his cane to him until he ran howling away effectually cured, while Charles, disgusted with the black-skinned African, left him and hurried out of the village. Charles Stevens' favorite walk was across the brook and among the great old oak trees beyond. His mind was greatly harassed and, like all great minds when perplexed, sought solitude. He went farther and farther into the woods and sat down upon a large stone. The recent trial of Goody Nurse, her conviction and execution moved his soul. He could not understand how people, civilized and enlightened, could be so deceived by what, to him, was so apparent. Charles knew that all were not dishonest in their belief. He even believed that some of the actors in this tragedy were sincere, but had been over-persuaded by Mr. Parris, whom he set down as the prime mover in it all. He sat for a long time, much longer than he supposed, reflecting on the past, and planning for the future, when he was startled by hearing footsteps coming toward him. He raised his head, and saw a young Indian brave, with his blanket wrapped about his shoulders, carrying a bow in his hand. His head was ornamented with a bunch of feathers, and his face was painted with all the gorgeous hues of savage barbaric art. He recognized Charles Stevens, for, advancing toward him with a smile, he extended his hand saying: "My white brother is not happy. What has made him sad?" The Indian was a good judge of human character, and in the face of the young white man he read a look of sorrow. "The white men of Salem are very wicked, Oracus," said Charles. "Not only are they wicked to their red brothers, but to their white brothers, as well. They have taken the old and helpless, the weak and forlorn, and put them to death." The young savage folded his arms across his massive chest and stood for a long time in silence. His eyes were upon the ground, and his stolid features were without show of emotion. His people had suffered wrongs at the hands of the white men; but in this one he had ever found an earnest, true friend. There existed between Charles and the brave a bond of brotherhood as enduring as life. The young chief inquired what had been done at the village, and Charles proceeded to tell him all, in as few words as possible, of the arrest, trial and execution of Goody Nurse and others. When he had completed the terrible story, the young chief drew his blanket about his shoulders and said: "I am your friend, and if your white brothers prove false, remember your red brother will be true." "I believe you, Oracus." "I have shown one white brother through the paths, away from his enemies, and you will always find Oracus in his forest home ready to befriend you." "The time may come when I will need your aid," said Charles Stevens. After a long interview, he rose and started home. He was near the great bridge which spanned the brook, when he suddenly came upon a tall, powerful man, whose sallow face and cavalier-like manner showed him to be a citizen of the southern colonies. Charles instantly recognized him as Mr. Joel Martin, the man whom he had seen on that night with Mr. Parris, Bly and Louder, coming to arrest Cora's father. "You are Charles Stevens?" the Virginian said, halting before the youth. "I have no desire to deny my name, for it is that of an honest man; I am Charles Stevens," he answered. "Do you know who I am?" "I suspect you are one whom I saw at my house, though your name I have not learned." "I am Joel Martin, and by profession an overseer on a Virginia plantation. There were but two of us, my brother and I. He was an overseer of an adjoining plantation, when one day a slave escaped. He pursued him and was slain." "I have heard the story," interrupted Charles. "You have? and from his own lips?" "I have; and I do not blame the man who was seeking liberty. He was a white man, as you yourself are. He had committed no crime, save that he was arrested as one of Monmouth's insurgents and had been captured while in the ranks of the rebel." Martin's eyes flashed with fury and, in a voice that was hoarse, he whispered: "You aided him to escape; but it shall not avail. I have for years followed on his trail, and I will not let go my hold on him, until I have dragged him to the scaffold. No; the blood of my brother cries out for vengeance, and I will follow him day and night through the trackless forests, until I have brought the renegade to justice. He cannot conceal himself so deep in the forest, he cannot hide himself among the savage tribes, nor burrow so deep in the earth, but that I will find him." Charles Stevens turned away and was walking toward home, when the tall Virginian, by a few quick strides, overtook him and, laying his hand on his shoulder, said: "You do not care to hear these threats; but I have not done with you yet. Listen; I want to say more. If you seek to thwart me, I will kill you. Do you hear?" "I have no fear of you, Mr. Martin," cried Charles Stevens, turning on the tall, swarthy southerner a glance which made him quail. "Your profession is brutality. You are a stranger to mercy; yet I will defy you. I fear you not, and, if you seek my life, you had better take heed for your own." Charles boldly walked away, leaving the discomfited Virginian to fume and rage alone. The shades of night were falling fast over the village of Salem, as Charles hurried homeward, and he was amazed as he came in sight of the house, to see a great throng of people going away from the door. The young man quickened his pace, hardly knowing whether he was asleep or awake. A negro slave came running toward him crying: "Massa! Massa! Massa!" "What has happened?" asked Charles. "Um tuk um away! Dey tuk um off!" "Who?" "Yo mudder." "My mother! Oh, God!" Charles Stevens ran swift as a roe buck toward the crowd, which had now almost reached the jail. "What does this mean?" he demanded of John Bly, whom he met near the jail. "Your mother is a witch," Bly answered. "You lie!" cried Charles, and with one swift, sure blow, he laid the slanderer senseless at his feet. "Hold, Charles Stevens! Hold! Be not rash, or she may fare worse," whispered a kind voice at his side, and, turning, he saw the sad face of John Nurse. He had drunk the bitter cup to its dregs and could advise. The world seemed swimming before the eyes of Charles Stevens. He tried to rush to that throng, whom he saw dragging both his mother and Cora Waters to the jail; but in vain. His feet refused to carry him. He strove to utter an outcry; but his voice failed, and all became darkness. CHAPTER XVI. ESCAPE AND FLIGHT. Come, rest in this bosom, my own stricken deer, Though the herd have fled from thee, thy home is still here: Here is the smile that no cloud can o'ercast, And a heart and a hand all thy own to the last. --Moore. When Charles Stevens regained consciousness, he was lying on a bed, and kindly faces were bending over him. He was conscious from the first of an oppressive weight of trouble, but could not realize what had occurred. As one awakening from a troubled dream, he strove to gather up his scattered faculties and recall what had happened. Like a blast of doom, the awful truth burst upon him, and he leaped to his feet. He was at the home of Landlord Nurse, and the pale, sad, horror-stricken faces about him were the old gentleman and his sons and daughters. They caught Charles before he reached the door. "My mother!" cried the young man. "No; you can do her no good by an act of rashness!" John Nurse answered. "Tell me all about it. I will sit here and listen to it all," said Charles, when he discovered that he could not break away from his friends. "Your mother and Cora Waters have both been cried out upon as witches, warrants were issued, and they were arrested. Now collect your faculties and act on your coolest judgment. Think what you will do." Charles Stevens bowed his head in his hands and reflected long and earnestly on the course to pursue. He recalled the words of Oracus, the brave young chief, who could muster a hundred warriors. He was cunning and might devise some plan of escape, and Charles was not long in resolving what to do. He would not act hurriedly. He would be desperate; but that desperation would have coolness and premeditation about it. He promised his friends to be calm, assuring them he would be guarded in his speech, and then begun seeking an interview with his mother and Cora. It was three days before the interview was granted. He found them occupying loathsome cells, each chained to the wall. The interview was long, and just what such an interview could be, full of grief and despair. Charles tried to hope. He tried to see a ray of sunlight; but the effort only revealed the swaying forms of those hung on Witches' Hill. Even if he summoned Oracus and all his braves, would they be strong enough to break down that door of iron, or cut the chains asunder! Charles, in his desperation, resolved to rescue the beloved ones or die in the effort. He went away weeping. He did not return home. That home was desolate, lonely and so like the tomb, that he dared not go near it. At the home of his kind friend, he wrote to relatives at New Plymouth, Boston, New York, Virginia and the Carolinias. To all he appealed for help, for Charles was determined to move heaven and earth or rescue his mother and Cora; but he did not depend on those distant relatives and friends so much as the dusky friends in the forest. He knew that before answers could come to his letters, he would be dead, or would have succeeded in his efforts. Even if he should be killed in an abortive attempt, however, he hoped that his relatives would resume the warfare for the prisoners. "Where is Cora's father?" he asked himself. "Could I but find the Waters brothers, I would have two friends and allies to aid me. Oh, Heaven, give me light! Give me light!" Charles Stevens, like all true Christians, in this dark hour went to God for aid. Kneeling, he prayed as he had never prayed before. He seemed to take hold of the throne of grace and, with a faith strengthened and renewed, drew inspiration for his desperate resolve from the only living fountain. Armed with his rifle and pistols, he left the village and went into the forest. The forest inspires man with reverence and love for God. The giant trees, the deep glens, the moss and ferns and cool shades seem to breathe of eternity. Charles Stevens had always loved the dark old woods, and never had they seemed so friendly as on this occasion, when they screened him from the frowns of man. Solitude offered him its charms. The zephyrs sought to soothe his sorrows by their gentle whispers, and the birds sang for the peace of his troubled spirit, while the babbling brooks strove to make him gay; but who can be gay when loved ones are menaced with a terrible danger? Charles Stevens saw little of the beauty of nature. His eyes were searching the forests for dusky forms, which he hoped to meet. Those dusky sons of the forest were not often desirable sights; but Charles was as anxious to see the feathers and painted faces of these heathens, as if they were brothers. He spent the day in wandering through the woods, forgetting to take any nourishment, for he had brought no food with him, and, in fact, he had not thought to eat since the arrest of his mother and Cora. He was weak and faint, and his hands trembled. He was not hungry; but his strength was giving way, and he realized that he had been foolish not to provide himself with food. Evening came, and he sank down on the mossy banks of a stream and took a few draughts of water to revive him. The stars came out one by one. By the merest chance, he raised his despairing eyes and, gazing across the stream to the woods beyond, saw a light. Charles struggled to his feet and gazed like one to whom life has suddenly been restored. "Perhaps it is Indians!" He plunged into the creek, waded across and started through the woods toward the light. It was much further away than he had at first supposed, and he was several minutes in reaching the camp fire. Ten dusky sons of the forest were seated about the camp fire, while two men in the garb of civilization were roving about. Charles felt some misgivings at first on discovering men of his own color in the camp. He crawled from tree to tree, from log to bush, until he was near enough to see the features of the men. When he first got within sight they stood with their backs toward him and he could not see their faces; but at last one turned about so that the glare of the fire-light fell full on his face, and, with a cry of joy, Charles Stevens bounded to his feet, crying: "Mr. Waters! Mr. Waters!" and dashed toward the camp. A pair of strong arms encircled his waist, and the young man heard a voice say: "White man go too soon!" He had been seized by a sentry; but Mr. Waters and Oracus hastened to him, and he was released. The other white man was the brother of Mr. Waters, and Charles, bewildered, overjoyed, yet faint and weak, was half led and half carried to the camp. He found himself making hurried explanations, while a savage was broiling venison steaks before the fire for him. "We know all," said Mr. George Waters. "What! do you know they have been cried out upon?" asked Charles. "We do." "Do you know they are in prison?" "We have heard it all," said Mr. Waters, calmly. "How could you have heard it?" asked Charles. "We have faithful friends, who inform us of everything." "Were you going to take action for their rescue?" asked Charles. "We were concerting plans when you came; but you must have food." Charles Stevens gazed on the calm face of the man before him, and could but wonder at his coolness. "Mr. Waters, do you know that your own daughter is one of the accused?" "I know all." "How can you be so calm, knowing all as you do?" "I am calm for my daughter's sake. The only hope of liberating her, of saving her life, is by cool, deliberate and well matured plans." "Are your plans formed?" "Yes." "When will you act?" "On to-morrow night. Oracus will have all his warriors ready by that time, and we will require crow-bars, hammers and axes, to break in the door of the jail. Meanwhile, if you expect to aid us, you will have to take some refreshments, food and drink, and get some sleep. You don't look as if you had slept for weeks." "I scarcely have." "Your conduct is foolish. If you love your mother, you should give the full strength of body and mind to her rescue." Charles ate some broiled venison and went to sleep. So exhausted was he, that he did not awake until the noise of breaking camp aroused him. Another white man was in camp. His hands were fastened behind his back and he was tied to a tree. His sallow complexion and angular features were familiar to Charles Stevens. The prisoner was Joel Martin. "Two of the Indians captured him last night," explained George Waters. "He was prowling about in the woods, and they seized him." "What are you going to do with him?" Charles asked. "We will do him no hurt unless we are forced to," said Mr. Waters. "I trust you will not be forced," said Charles Stevens. "So I pray; yet we must protect ourselves and those whom we would rescue." "I see that many more Indians are in camp than were here yesterday." "Yes." "Are they friends?" "They are the braves of Oracus, and will follow where he leads." Charles Stevens passed an anxious day. A part of the time he was near enough to Joel Martin to hear him muttering: "I have no fear of George Waters, galley slave. You may turn me over to your heathen cut-throats; yet I will defy you. If I live, I will yet drag you to justice for the murder of my brother." "Mr. Martin, you have forgotten that the word of God says, 'Vengeance is mine and I will repay, saith the Lord,'" put in Charles. "I will be the instrument of vengeance." "You are in the power of Mr. Waters." "For the present I am." "Don't you think you should be careful how you threaten him, seeing he has you at his mercy." Charles could not intimidate the bold Virginian. He was furious, and no threat of punishment could move him. During the day, a dozen more Indians came in. The red men now numbered eighty, and by the afternoon the entire party was moving toward Salem. At dusk they were but five miles from the village. Here a halt was called, and, after a short consultation, Oracus detailed five of his braves to guard Mr. Martin, and with the others moved on over the hills and through the woods toward Salem. "What will they do with him?" Charles asked. "Release him when we leave the village." "Mr. Waters, would you not be justified in killing him?" "No." "Why not? He will murder you if he can." "No one is justified in slaying a prisoner, and I shall never do it. No more blood will be on my hands, unless it be in defence of her. For her, I slew the other, and only for her will my arm ever be raised against my fellow man." "Not even in self defence?" "No, as God is my judge, my hand shall never be raised even to defend this miserable life. I live but for my child, and when she is gone, I care not how soon I am called. I have known only sorrow since----" He did not finish the sentence, but turned away. It was late in the night when the party entered Salem. The houses were dark and silent. No light was visible from any window, and it seemed a deserted hamlet. Earnestness without excitement was evinced. Everything was done in perfect order. The men moved first to the blacksmith shop, where several supplied themselves with axes, heavy crow-bars and sledges. "Explain to your warriors that, under no circumstances, are they to shed blood," said Mr. George Waters. While Oracus was giving this order to his braves, Mr. Waters, by the aid of a lighted pine knot, found a pair of cold chisels, which he appropriated. Then the party moved off toward the jail in perfect order. There was no undue haste, or nervous excitement. All seemed as cool as if they were going as invited guests to a banquet. The Indians' moccasined feet made scarcely any noise upon the ground, as they moved forward. Mr. Henry Waters carried in his hand a stout iron bar, and twenty Indians bore on their shoulders a heavy log of wood. At a word of command from Oracus the others deployed as flankers and guards. They had strict orders to harm no one; but, should they find any attempting to approach them, they were to seize and hold such persons. The jail was reached. The long, low wall of stone, with gates of iron, loomed up like some sullen monster before the determined men. Mr. Henry Waters thrust the heavy iron bar he carried under the iron gate, and tore it off its hinges. Then George Waters and Charles raised their sledges, while the savages with the heavy log of wood ran it like a monster battering-ram against the door. At the same instant they struck it with their sledges. The crash was deafening, and the jail trembled to its very centre. Again, and again, and again did those crashing thunder-bolts fall upon the iron door. The unfortunate inmates, not knowing the object of this terrible attack, set up a howl which was heard above the thunder crashes. The door, stout as it was, could not long withstand that assault. It gave way with a crash, and fell into the hall way. The terrified jailer tumbled out of his bed, only to find himself seized and held by a pair of painted sons of the forest. Others who attempted to interfere were seized and held in grasps of iron. [Illustration: The jail trembled to its very centre.] No sooner was the door of the jail burst off its hinges, than George Waters and Charles Stevens, each with a chisel and hammer, rushed in to cut the chains of the prisoners. "Mother! mother! where are you?" cried Charles. He had to call several times before the frightened woman could answer. Then from out the darkness there came a feeble response. He groped his way along in the darkness. He found a cell door, tore it open and reached her side. At this moment some one lighted a torch within the jail. A scene, wild, weird and terrible burst upon their view. The prisoners were almost driven to madness by the sudden appearance of the savage and civilized liberators. Charles Stevens, with chisel and hammer, quickly cut the chains of his mother and hastened to liberate Cora. Her father held the light, while he cut the iron band. "Free! free!" cried the excited Charles. "Let us away before the town is roused!" "No," answered Mr. George Waters; "not while a prisoner remains to suffer the wrath of prejudice." Then with chisel and hammer he went from one to another and cut the iron bands which bound them. Oracus and Henry Waters joined him in the work of liberation, until all were freed. This required several moments of time, and the confusion and uproar which they were compelled to make was rousing the town. Mr. Parris, half-dressed, ran barefoot through the town, waving his long arms in the air, and shouting that the fiends of the air had conspired to liberate the prisoners. His words and his wild, fanatical manner tended rather to increase the fear of the people of Salem, than diminish it. Then there went out the report through the village that the Indians had attacked the town, and the people, roused from their midnight slumbers, magnified the numbers of the assailants ten to one. "Cora! Mother!" whispered Charles, "this way!" He took a hand of each and started to run from the jail down the street. Others followed. "Fly! all of you! Fly for your lives!" cried Henry Waters, who, now that his work was done, flung aside his iron bar and sledge. At a word of command from Oracus his warriors formed a hollow square about the escaping fugitives, and moved off as rapidly as they could. Everybody was bewildered. Everybody running into the street was asking: "What has happened? What has gone amiss?" "They are rescuing the prisoners," shouted Mr. Parris, wildly. "Don't you see them hurrying away with them." He ran to the sheriff and cried: "Bestir yourself! Do you not see they are taking your prisoners away?" "I have no deputies," answered the sheriff. "They number hundreds, and the Indians are with them." "Nonsense! They are only disguised, and are not a dozen. Come! I will go with you." Four or five by-standers, being thus emboldened, offered to go themselves and aid in recovering the prisoners. "Come! I will lead you!" cried the eager preacher, allowing his zeal to overcome his discretion. They ran after the escaping party, and Mr. Parris, either being more zealous than the others, or more swift of foot, outran them and, eluding some of the Indians, who tried to intercept him, ran to where Charles Stevens was half leading and half dragging his mother and Cora from the village. "Fire-brand of hades! you shall not escape me," cried Mr. Parris seizing Cora's shoulder with a clutch so fierce as to make her cry out. Charles released both his mother and Cora, and, seizing Mr. Parris by the throat, hurled him to the ground, and raised a hammer to brain him; but at this moment a strong hand seized his arm, and the calm, kind voice of Mr. Waters said: "Stay your hand, Charles. Do the man no harm." Next moment, a pair of dusky hands seized Mr. Parris, and he was hurried away to the rear. Mr. Henry Waters caused a couple of guns to be fired in the air in order to intimidate their pursuers. This had the desired effect, and the mention of Indians was sufficient to drive all to the defense of their homes. The fugitives reached the forest before the sheriff and Mr. Parris could get an armed party in pursuit. They followed them to the brook, and fired a volley at them, but in vain. The number of accused who escaped on that night, has been estimated at from twenty to one hundred. CHAPTER XVII. OUT OF THE FRYING PAN INTO THE FIRE. Though high the warm, red torrent ran, Between the flames that lit the sky; Yet, for each drop, an armed man Shall rise, to free the land, or die. --Bryant. The liberated prisoners went whithersoever they pleased. Some went to Boston, others to Plymouth, many to New York, New Jersey and Maryland, while a few returned to England. They were wearied with their experience in the New World, and were content to spend their days in England. Charles Stevens retained a firm hold on his mother and Cora, until it was quite evident that their pursuers had, for the present, at least, given up the chase. They went on in the forest until they were joined by the five savages left to guard Joel Martin. Martin was no longer with them. Charles did not inquire what had become of him, for he was wholly engrossed in the safety of Cora and his mother. [Illustration: MAP OF NORTH AMERICA PERIOD, 1680 TO 1700 DRAWN FOR "THE WITCH OF SALEM"] The Indians and the Waters brothers were engaged in a consultation. Charles took no part in the consultation, for he knew nothing to advise. Then the Indians accompanied them for a few miles through the woods. The forest was dark and sombre, and they had only the silent stars to light their path, until the tardy moon, rising at a late hour, filled the landscape with silver light. Day dawned, and they were in a wild, picturesque wood, with towering hills and stupendous oaks on every side. Here they halted again for consultation. Oracus, after giving them all the provisions he had with him, took his warriors and stole off into the forest. George Waters and his brother urged the escaped prisoners to eat some dried venison and parched corn and sleep. They did. Indian blankets on the ground afforded them beds, and their only covering was the sky. Charles slept until the afternoon was almost spent, and then he was awakened by the tramp of horses feet. He started up and found three Indians with five horses, saddled and bridled. The Indians belonged to the braves of Oracus, and, without a word, they dismounted and turned over the horses to the Englishmen, and stole away into the forest. A few moments later, the white people were mounted and riding away through one of the narrow paths known only to the Waters brothers. Charles Stevens' soul was too full for him to give heed to what course they took. His mother and Cora were free, though he little dreamed that they were escaping from one danger to another. They arrived one night at the home of Mr. Dustin, near Haverhill, in Massachusetts. When the frontiersman heard their story, he said: "You are welcome, my persecuted friends, to the shelter of my roof, so long as it can afford you any protection; but the war clouds seem to grow darker and more lowering every moment, and I don't know how long my roof will afford protection to any one." Charles Stevens had been so busy with his own cares and griefs, that he had forgotten that a terrible Indian war was raging on the frontier. This war was known as King William's war, in which the French joined with the Indians in bringing fire and sword upon the inhabitants of New England and New York. The French and English had long been jealous of each other, and a connected account need not be given here of all the disastrous occurrences which lead up to the terrible assault on Haverhill, where the fugitives from Salem were stopping. We will mention, as first of the principal attacks during the war of King William, the attack on Schenectady. This was made in pursuance of a plan adopted by Count Frontenac, then governor of Canada, as a means of avenging on the English Colonies the treatment of King James, deposed by William and Mary, which had inflamed the resentment of Frontenac's master, Louis XIV. While New York was torn with internal strife over Leisler, the governor of Canada fitted out three expeditions against the colonies, and in the midst of winter one was sent against New York. The attack on Schenectady was the fruit of this expedition. It was made by a party consisting of about two hundred French and fifty Caughnewaga Indians, under command of Maulet and St. Helene, in 1689 and 1690. Schenectady was built in the form of an oblong square with a gate at either extremity. The enemy found one of the gates not only open, but unguarded. Although the town was impaled and might have been protected, there was so little thought of danger, that no one deemed it necessary to close the gate. The weather was very cold, and the English did not suppose an attack would be made. It was eleven o'clock and thirty minutes on Saturday night, February 8th, 1690, when the enemy entered, divided their party, waylaid every portal and began the attack with a terrible war-whoop. Maulet attacked a garrison, where the only resistance was made. He soon forced the gate, slew the soldiers and burned the garrison. One of the French officers was wounded in forcing a house; but St. Helene came to his aid, the house was taken, and all in it were put to the sword. Naught was now to be seen, save massacre and pillage on every side, while the most shocking barbarities were practised on the unfortunate inhabitants. "Sixty-three houses and the church were immediately in a blaze," says a contemporaneous writer. Weak women, in their expiring agonies, saw their infants cast into the flames, or brained before their eyes. Sixty-three persons were murdered and twenty-seven carried into captivity. A few persons were enabled to escape; but, being without sufficient clothing, some perished in the cold before they reached Albany. About noon next day, the enemy left the desolate place, taking such plunder as they could carry with them and destroying the remainder. It was the intention of Maulet to spare the minister, for he wanted him as his own prisoner; but he was found among the mangled dead, and his papers burned. Two or three houses were spared, while the others were consigned to the flames. [Illustration: Naught was to be seen, save massacre and pillage on every side.] Owing to the wretched condition of the roads and the deep snows, news of the massacre did not reach the great Mohawk castle, only seventeen miles distant, for two days. On receipt of the terrible news, an armed party set out at once in pursuit of the foe. After a long tedious march through the snow and forest, they came upon their rear, and a furious fight followed, in which about twenty-five of them were killed and wounded. A second party of French and Indians was sent against the delightful settlement of Salmon Falls, on the Piscataqua. At Three Rivers, Frontenac had fitted out an expedition of fifty-two men and twenty-five Indians, with Sieur Hertel as their leader. In this small band he had three sons and two nephews. After a long and rugged march, Hertel reached the place on the 27th of March, 1690. His spies having reconnoitred it, he divided his men into three companies, leading the largest himself. Just at dawn of day the attack was made. The English stoutly resisted, but were unable to withstand the well-directed fire of their assailants. Thirty of the bravest defenders fell. The remainder, amounting to fifty-four, were made prisoners. The English had twenty-seven houses reduced to ashes, and two thousand domestic animals perished in the barns that were burned. The third party, which was fitted out at Quebec by the directions of Frontenac, made an attack upon Casco, in Maine. The expedition was commanded by M. De Portneuf. Hertel, on his return to Canada, met with this expedition, and, joining it with the force under his command, came back to the scene of warfare in which he had been so unhappily successful. As the hostile army marched through the country of the Abenakis, numbers of them joined it. Portneuf, with his forces thus augmented, came into the neighborhood of Casco, about the 25th of May, 1690. On the following night, an Englishman who entered the well-laid ambush was captured and killed. This so excited the Indians that they raised the war-whoop. Fifty English soldiers were sent from the fort to ascertain the occasion of the yelling, and were drawn into the ambuscade. A volley from the woods on either side swept them down, and before the remainder could recover from the panic into which they were thrown by the volley, they were assailed with swords, bayonets and tomahawks, and but four out of the party escaped and these with severe wounds. "The English seeing now that they must stand a siege, abandoned four garrisons, and all retired into one which was provided with cannon. Before these were abandoned, an attack was made upon one of them, in which the French were repulsed with an Indian killed and a Frenchman wounded. Portneuf now began to doubt of his ability to take Casco, fearing the issue; for his commission only ordered him to lay waste the English settlements, and not to attempt fortified places; but, in this dilemma, Hertel and Hopehood (a celebrated chief of the tribe of the Kennebec), arrived. It was now determined to press the siege. In the deserted forts they found all the necessary tools for carrying on the work, and they began a mine within fifty feet of the fort, under a steep bank, which entirely protected them from its guns. The English became discouraged, and, on the 28th of May, surrendered themselves as prisoners of war. There were seventy men and probably a greater number of women and children; all of whom, except Captain Davis, who commanded the garrison, and three or four others, were given up to the Indians, who murdered most of them in their most cruel manner; and, if the accounts be true, Hopehood excelled all other savages in acts of cruelty." These barbarous transactions produced both terror and indignation in New York and New England, and an attempt at a formidable demonstration against the enemy was made. The general court of Massachusetts sent letters of request to the several executives of the provinces, pursuant to which, they convened at New York, May 1st, 1661. As the result of the deliberations, two important measures were adopted. Connecticut sent General Winthrop with troops to march through Albany, there to receive supplies and to be joined by a body of men from New York. The expedition was to proceed up Lake Champlain to destroy Montreal. There was a failure, however, of the supplies, and this project was defeated. Massachusetts sent forth a fleet of thirty-four sail, under William Phipps. He proceeded to Port Royal, took it, reduced Acadia, and thence sailed up the St. Lawrence, with the design of capturing Quebec. The troops landed with some difficulty, and the place was boldly summoned to surrender. A proud defiance was returned by Frontenac, as his position at that time happened to be strengthened by a re-enforcement from Montreal. Phipps, learning this, and finding, also, that the party of Winthrop, which he expected at Montreal, failed, gave up the attempt, and returned to Boston, with the loss of several vessels and a considerable number of troops, for a part of his fleet was wrecked by a storm. It was in the midst of such trying scenes and devastation on the part of the French and savages, that superstition and fanaticism broke loose in Salem and produced a reign of terror far greater than that caused by the savages on the frontier. It was from such scenes to such scenes that Charles Stevens, his mother and friends fled. Mr. Dustin lived near Haverhill, in Massachusetts, and when they appealed to him for shelter and protection he said: "To such as I have you are welcome; but, I assure you, it is poor. The savage scalping-knife may be more dangerous than the fanatic's noose in Salem." They had been at Haverhill but a few weeks, when, as Charles and Mr. Henry Waters were one day returning from a hunt, they discovered a man trailing them. "It's a white man," Charles remarked. "So I perceive, and why should he trail us?" Henry Waters asked. "I know not; but let us ascertain." They halted at the creek near Haverhill, and were sitting on the banks of the stream, when a voice from the rocks above demanded their surrender. Looking up, they found themselves covered with three rifles. Three white men, one of whom they recognized as Mr. Joel Martin, the Virginian, stepped out from behind the rocks and advanced toward them, assuring them that any effort to escape, or resist would result in instant death. "I have you at last, murderer!" cried Martin, seizing Henry Waters. "No, you mistake----" began Charles; but Henry Waters signed him to keep quiet. The Waters brothers, as the reader is aware, were twins and looked so much alike, that it was difficult to distinguish one from the other. Charles was not slow to grasp at the idea of Henry Waters. He would suffer himself to be taken to Virginia in his brother's stead, where he would make his identity known and establish an alibi; but there was danger of the revengeful Martin killing his prisoner before he reached Virginia, and Charles said: "Will you promise, on your honor as a Virginian, not to harm the prisoner until he reaches a court of justice?" The Virginian gave his promise, and then the three led Mr. Waters hurriedly away, mounted horses, hastened to Boston and took a vessel for Virginia. Charles Stevens went to Mr. George Waters and told him what had happened. Mr. Waters' face grew troubled; but he said nothing. That night there was an alarm of savages in the neighborhood and Charles Stevens and Mr. Waters went with a train-band to meet the foe. In a skirmish, Mr. Waters was wounded, and it was thought best for him to go to Boston for medical treatment. "I have friends and relatives there," Charles said, "and we might be safe." Next day the four secretly set out for Boston, where they lodged for awhile with some relatives of Charles and his mother, who kept their presence a secret. Before concluding this chapter, it is the duty of the author, although stepping aside from the narrative, to relate what befell their brave friends, the Dustins, during the progress of King William's war. The atrocities committed upon the colonists by the French and Indians were equal to any recorded in the annals of barbarous ages. Connected with these were instances of heroic valor on the part of the heroic sufferers, which are not surpassed. On March 15th, 1697, the last year of King William's war, an attack was suddenly made on Haverhill by a party of about twenty Indians. It was a rapid, but fatal onset, and a fitting _finale_ of so dreadful a ten years' war. Eight houses were destroyed, twenty-seven persons killed, and thirteen carried away prisoners. One of these houses, standing in the outskirts of the village and, in fact, over the hill, so as to be almost out of sight of the people in the town, was the home of Mr. Dustin, the house which had afforded shelter to the fugitives from the Salem witchcraft persecution. On that fatal morning, Mr. Dustin had gone to the field to commence his spring work. The season was early, and the plow and shovel had already begun to turn over the rich, black soil. The industrious farmer had but just harnessed his horse, when the animal began to sniff the air, and, turning his eyes toward some bushes, Mr. Dustin discovered two painted faces, with heads adorned by feathers. At the same moment, a rattling crash of firearms and the terrible war-whoop announced the attack on Haverhill. He unharnessed his horse, seized his gun, which he always kept near at hand, and galloped away like the wind toward the house, pursued by arrows of the Indians. Reaching the house before the Indians, he cried to his family to fly, and he would cover their retreat. "Mrs. Neff, take Mrs. Dustin and fly for your lives," he cried. Mrs. Dustin had an infant, but a few days old, and was confined to her bed. Mrs. Neff was her nurse. The husband made an attempt to remove his wife; but it was too late. The Indians, like ravenous wolves, were rushing on the house. Mrs. Dustin turned to her husband and said: "Go, Thomas, you cannot save me, go and save the children." Moved by her urgent appeal, he leaped on his horse and, with his gun in his hand, galloped away after the children, seven in number, who were already running down the road. The first thought of the father was to seize one, place it on the horse before him, and escape; but he was unable to select one from the others. All were alike dear to him, and he resolved to defend all or perish in the effort. They had reached a point below the town, where the road ran between two hills in a narrow pass. A party of Indians, eleven in number, had seen the children and were running after them. Mr. Dustin spurred his horse between the children and the savage foe, and shouting to his darlings to fly, and bidding the oldest carry the youngest, he drew rein at the pass and cocked his gun. Thomas Dustin was a dead shot, and his rifle was the best made at that day. Facing the savages, he fired and shot the leader dead in his tracks. His followers were appalled at the fate of their brawny chieftain, and for a moment hesitated. Mr. Dustin hesitated not a single instant, but proceeded, without a moment's delay, to reload his gun. Five of the Indians fired at the resolute father, as he rode away after his flying children. "Run! run! run for your lives!" he shouted. The Indians, with a whoop of vengeance followed the father. He had four balls in his gun, and, wheeling his horse about, he fired this terrible charge at them. Though none were killed instantly at this shot, three were wounded, two so severely that they died next day. The Indians abandoned the pursuit of the resolute father, who continued to fight as he retreated, and turned their attention to less dangerous victories, so Mr. Dustin escaped with his children. Mrs. Neff, the nurse in attendance on Mrs. Dustin, heroically resolved to share the fate of her patient, even when she could have escaped. The Indians entered the house, and, having made the sick woman rise and sit quietly in the corner of the fire-place, they pillaged the dwelling, and set it on fire, taking the occupants out of it. At the approach of night, Mrs. Dustin was forced to march into the wilderness and seek repose on the hard, cold ground. Mrs. Neff attempted to escape with the baby, but was intercepted. The infant had its brains beaten out against a tree, and the body was thrown into the bushes. The captives of Haverhill, when collected, were thirteen miserable, wretched people. That same day they were marched twelve miles before camping, although it was nearly night before they set out. Succeeding this, for several days they were compelled to keep up with the savage captors, over an extent of country of not less than one hundred and forty or fifty miles. Feeble as she was, it seems wonderful that Mrs. Dustin should have borne up under the trials and fatigues of the journey; but she did. [Illustration: The resolute father continued to fire as he retreated.] After this, the Indians, according to their custom, divided their prisoners. Mrs. Dustin, Mrs. Neff and a captive lad from Worcester fell to the share of an Indian family consisting of twelve persons. These now took charge of the captives and treated them with no particular unkindness, save that of forcing them to extend their journey still further toward an Indian settlement. One day they told the prisoners that there was one ceremony to which they must submit after their arrival at their destination, and that was running the gauntlet between two files of Indians. This announcement filled Mrs. Dustin and her companions with so much dread, that they mutually resolved to make a desperate attempt to escape. Mrs. Hannah Dustin, Mrs. Mary Neff the nurse, and the lad Samuel Leonardson, only eleven years of age, were certainly not persons to excite the fear of a dozen sturdy warriors. The Indians believed the lad faithful to them, and never dreamed that the women would have courage enough to attempt to escape, and no strict watch was kept over them. In order to throw the savage captors off their guard, Mrs. Dustin seemed to take well to them, and on the day before the plan of escape was carried out, she ascertained, through inquiries made by the lad, how to kill a man instantly and how to take off his scalp. "Strike him here," the Indian explained, placing his finger on his temple, "and take off his scalp so," showing the lad how it was done. With this information, the plot was ripe. Just before dawn of day, when the Indians sleep most profound, Mrs. Dustin softly rose from her bed of earth and touched Mary Neff on the shoulder. A single touch was sufficient to awake her, and she sat up. Next the lad had to be aroused. Being young and wearied, his slumbers were profound. An Indian lay near asleep. Mrs. Dustin seized his tomahawk, and Mrs. Neff seized another Indian's weapons. The nurse shook Samuel. The lad rose, rubbed his eyes and went over to where the man lay, who had instructed him in the art of killing. He seized his hatchet and held it in his hand ready. At a signal from Mrs. Dustin, three blows fell on three temples, and with a quiver three sleepers in life had passed to the sleep of death. Once more the hatchets were raised, and six of the twelve were dead. The little noise they were compelled to make disturbed the slumbers of the others, and the three hatchets, now red with blood, fell on three more. Mrs. Neff, growing nervous and excited, cut her man's head a little too far forward, and he started up with a yell. The blood blinded him, however, and she stabbed him. The yell had roused the others, and a squaw with a child fled to the woods, while the tenth, a young warrior, was assailed by Mrs. Dustin and the lad and slain ere he was fully awake. Ten of the twelve were dead, and the escaped prisoners, after scuttling all the boats save one, to prevent pursuit, started in that down the river, with what provisions they could take from the Indians. They had not gone far, when Mrs. Dustin said: "We have not scalped the Indians." "Why should we?" asked Mrs. Neff. "When we get home and tell our friends that we three slew ten Indians, they will demand some proof of the assertion, and the ten scalps will be proof." Samuel Leonardson, boy like, was anxious to have the scalps of his foes, and so they overruled Mrs. Neff and, turning about, went back to the camp which was now deserted save by the ghastly dead, their glassy eyes gazing upward at the skies. "This is the way he told me to do it," said Samuel, seizing the tuft of hair on the head of the man who had instructed him in scalping. He ran the keen edge of a knife around the skull and, by a quick jerk, pulled off the scalp. Being novices in the art, it took them some time to remove the scalps from the heads of all; but the bloody task was finally accomplished and putting the scalps in a bag, they once more embarked in the Indian canoe and started down the stream. "With strong hearts, the three voyagers went down the Merrimac to their homes, every moment in peril from savages or the elements, and were received as persons risen from the dead. Mrs. Dustin found her husband and children saved. Soon after, she went to Boston, carrying with her a gun and tomahawk, which she had brought from the wigwam, and her ten trophies, and the general court of Massachusetts gave these brave sufferers fifty pounds as a reward for their heroism. Ex-Governor Nicholson, of Maryland, sent a metal tankard to Mrs. Dustin and Mrs. Neff, as a token of his admiration. That tankard is now (1875) in the possession of Mr. Emry Coffin, of Newburyport, Massachusetts. During the summer of 1874, one hundred and seventy-seven years after the event, citizens of Massachusetts and New Hampshire erected on the highest point of Dustin's Island an elegant monument, commemorative of the heroic deed. It displays a figure of Mrs. Dustin, holding in her right hand, raised in the attitude of striking, a tomahawk, and a bunch of scalps in the other. On it are inscribed the names of Hannah Dustin, Mary Neff and Samuel Leonardson, the English lad."[E] [Footnote E: Lossing's "Our Country," vol. iii., p. 418.] Haverhill was a second time attacked and desolated during King William's war, and other places suffered. The treaty at Ryswick, a village near the Hague, in Holland, soon after, put an end to the indiscriminate slaughter in Europe and America. At this insignificant little village, a peace was agreed upon between Louis XIV. of France and England, Spain and Holland, and the German Empire, which ended a war of more than seven years' duration. Louis was compelled to acknowledge William of Orange to be the sovereign of England. That war cost Great Britain one hundred and fifty millions of dollars in cash, besides a hundred millions loaned. The latter laid the foundation of England's enormous national debt, which, to-day, amounts to five thousand millions of dollars. Prior to the treaty at Ryswick, a Board of Trade and Plantations was established in England, whose duty it was to have a general oversight of the affairs of the American colonies. It was a permanent commission, the members of which were called "Lords of Trade and Plantations." It consisted of seven members, with a president, and was always a ready instrument of oppression in the hands of the sovereign, and became a powerful promoter of those discontents in the colonies, which broke out in open rebellion in 1775. The peace of Ryswick was of short duration. Aspirants for power again tormented the people with the evils of war. King James II. died in France, September, 1701. He had been shielded by Louis after his flight from his throne to France, and now the French monarch acknowledged James' son, James Francis Edward (known in history as the pretender) to be the lawful king of England. This act greatly offended the English, because the crown had been settled upon Anne, James' second Protestant daughter. Louis, in addition, had offended the English by placing his grandson, Philip of Anjou, on the throne of Spain, so increasing the influence of France among the dynasties of Europe. King William was enraged and was preparing for war, when a fall from his horse, while hunting, caused his death. He was succeeded by Anne, and a war ensued, which lasted almost a dozen years and is known in history as Queen Anne's War. We have, however, too long dwelt on the general history of the country. It will be essential to our story that we return to the village of Salem where superstition was reigning, while the chief characters of our story were resting in security at Boston, not daring to go abroad by day. CHAPTER XVIII. SUPERSTITION REIGNS. The awful tragedy was through, And friends and enemies withdrew. Some smite their breasts and trembling say, "Unlawful deeds were done to-day." --Paxton. After the escape of Mrs. Stevens and Cora Waters, a wave of superstition swept over the village of Salem with such irresistible fury, that it seemed in greater danger than the frontier settlements did from the French and Indians. The Nurse family and all their relatives came in for a greater share than any other. Mrs. Cloyse was second of the family to be accused by Parris and his minions. Mrs. Cloyse drew ill-will upon herself at the outset by doing as her brother and sister Nurse did. They all absented themselves from the examinations in the church, and, when the interruptions of the services became too flagrant, from Sabbath worship. They declared that they took that course, because they disapproved of the permission given to the profanation of the place and the service. At last Mrs. Cloyse, or Goody Cloyse, as she was called in the records of the day, was arrested. Mary Easty and Elizabeth Proctor were also arrested. Mary Easty, sister of Mrs. Nurse, was tried and condemned. On her condemnation and sentence, she made an affective memorial while under sentence of death, and fully aware of the hopelessness of her case, addressing the judges, the magistrates and the reverend ministers, imploring them to consider what they were doing, and how far their course in regard to accused persons was inconsistent with the principles and rules of justice. "I ask nothing for myself," she said. "I am satisfied with my own innocence and certain of my doom on earth and my hope in Heaven. What I do desire, is to induce the authorities to take time, and to use caution in receiving and strictness in sifting testimony; and so shall they ascertain the truth, and absolve the innocent, the blessing of God being upon your conscientious endeavors." No effect was produced by her warnings or remonstrances. Before setting forth from the jail to the Witches' Hill on the day of her death, she serenely bade farewell to her husband and many children, and many of her friends, some of whom afterward related that "her sayings were so serious, religious, distinct and affectionate as could well be expressed, drawing tears from the eyes of all present." The subject of witchcraft grew more interesting after the execution of Mary Easty, and to examine Elizabeth Proctor and Sarah Cloyse, or Cloyce, as Mr. Bancroft spells the name, the deputy governor and five magistrates went to Salem. It was a great day. Several ministers were present. Parris officiated, and, by his own record, it is plain that he himself elicited every accusation. His first witness John, the West India negro servant, husband to Tituba, was rebuked by Sarah Cloyse as a grievous liar. Abigail Williams, the niece to Parris, was also at hand with her wonderful tales of sorcery. She swore she had seen the prisoner at the witches' sacrament. Struck with horror at such bold perjury, Sarah Cloyse called for water and swooned away before it could be brought her. Upon this, Abigail Williams, her brother's wife, Sarah Williams, Parris' daughter and Ann Putnam shouted: "Her spirit is gone to prison to her sister!" Against Elizabeth Proctor, Abigail Williams related stories that were so foolish that one wonders how any sensible person could believe them. Among other things she told how the accused had invited her to sign the Devil's book. "Dear child!" exclaimed the accused, in her agony, "it is not so. There is another judgment, dear child," and her accusers, turning toward her husband, declared that he, too, was a wizard. All three were committed. Examinations and commitments multiplied. Giles Corey, a stubborn old man of more than four-score years, could not escape the malice of his minister and his angry neighbors, with whom he had quarrelled. Parris had had a rival in George Burroughs, a graduate of Harvard College, who, having formerly preached in Salem village, had friends there desirous of his return. He was a skeptic on the subject of witchcraft, and Parris determined to have his revenge on him, and, through his many agents and instruments, had him accused and committed. Thus far there had been no success in obtaining confessions, though earnestly solicited. It had been strongly hinted that a confession was an avenue of safety. At last, "Deliverance Hobbs owned every thing that was asked of her," and left unharmed. The gallows was to be set up, not for those who professed themselves witches, but for those who rebuked the delusion. [Illustration: Lieut.-Gov. Stoughton.] On May 14th, the new charter and the royal governor arrived in Boston. On the next Monday, the charter was published, and the parishioner of Cotton Mather, with the royal council, was installed in office. The triumph of Cotton Mather was complete. A court of oyer and terminer was immediately instituted by ordinance, and the positive, overbearing Stoughton was appointed by the governor and council as its chief judge, with Sewall and Wait Winthrop, two feebler men, as his associates. By the second of June, the court was in session at Salem, making its experiment on Bridget Bishop, a poor and friendless old woman. The fact of witchcraft was assumed as "notorious." To fix it on the prisoner, Samuel Parris, who had examined her before her commitment, was the principal witness to her power of inflicting torture. He had seen it exercised. Then came the testimony of the bewitched, and a terrible mess of stuff it was. One, on reading it, might suppose that all the inmates of Bedlam had been summoned into court to give their personal experience in the land of insanity. Many of the witnesses testified that the "shape" of the prisoner often grievously tormented them, by pinching, choking, or biting them, and did otherwise seriously afflict them, urging them all the while to write their names in a book, which "the spectre" called: "Our book." Sarah Williams, who was devotedly attached to Mr. Parris and his cause, swore that it was the shape of this prisoner, with Cora Waters, which one day took her from her wheel and, carrying her to the river side, threatened to drown her, if she did not sign the book mentioned, which she yet refused to do. Others said that the witch "in her shape," that is, appearing to them in a spiritual body invisible to any save the parties before whom she would appear, boasted that she had ridden John Bly, having first changed him into a horse. One testified to seeing ghosts of dead people, who declared that Bridget Bishop had murdered them. While the examination of the accused was in progress, the bewitched seemed extremely tortured. If she turned her eyes on them, they were struck down. While they lay in swoons or convulsions, the poor old woman was made to touch them, and they immediately sprang to their feet. Samuel Parris had his minions well trained. On any special action of her body, shaking of her head, or the turning of her eyes, they imitated her posture and seemed under some strange spell. Evidence was given that one of the bewitched persons persuaded a man to strike at the spot where the "shape of this Bishop stood," and the bewitched cried out: "You have tore her coat," and it was found that the woman's dress was torn in the very place. Deliverance Hobbs, who had confessed to being a witch, now testified that she was tormented by the spectres for her confession. And she now testified that this Bishop tempted her to sign the book again, and to deny what she had confessed. "It was the shape of this prisoner," she declared, "which whipped me with iron rods, to compel me thereunto, and I furthermore saw Bridget Bishop at a general meeting of the witches, in a field at Salem village, where they partook of a diabolical sacrament in bread and wine, then administered." John Cook testified: "About five or six years ago, one morning, about sunrise, I was in my chamber assaulted by the shape of this prisoner, which looked on me, grinned at me, and very much hurt me with a blow on the side of the head, and on the same day, about noon, the same shape walked into the room where I was, and an apple strangely flew out of my hand." Samuel Gray testified: "About fourteen years ago, I waked on a night, and saw the room wherein I lay full of light. Then I plainly saw a woman, between the cradle and the bedside, which looked upon me. I rose, and it vanished, though I found all the doors fast. Looking out at the entry door, I saw the same woman, in the same garb again, and I said, 'In God's name, what do you come for?' I went to bed and had the same woman again assaulting me. The child in the cradle gave a great screech, and the woman disappeared. It was long before the child could be quieted; and, though it was a very likely, thriving child, yet from this time it pined away, and, after divers months, died in a sad condition. I knew not Bishop then, nor her name; but when I saw her after this, I knew her by her countenance and apparel and all circumstances, that it was the apparition of this Bishop, which had thus troubled me." John Bly testified: "I bought a sow of Edmund Bishop, the husband of the prisoner, and was to pay the price agreed upon to another person. This prisoner, being angry that she was thus hindered from fingering the money, quarrelled with me; soon after which the sow was taken with strange fits, jumping, leaping and knocking her head against the fence. She seemed blind and deaf and could not eat, whereupon my neighbor John Louder said he believed the creature was overlooked, and there were sundry other circumstances concurred, which made me believe that Bishop had bewitched it." The examining magistrates asked Bly: "Have you ever been transformed by the prisoner?" "I have," Bly answered. "When was it?" "Last summer. One night, as I was coming home late, the shape of the prisoner came at me. She shook a bridle over my head and I became a horse. Then she mounted me, rode me several leagues and the bridle was removed, and I lay in my bed." John Louder, another acquaintance of Charles Stevens, was next called. John had had his experience with witches. He was an ardent admirer of Mr. Parris, and one of his emissaries. Louder, Bly and, in fact, all of Parris' tools were ignorant, bigoted and superstitious. They could be made to believe anything the pastor would tell them. Louder testified: "I had some little controversy with Bishop about her fowls. Going well to bed, I did awake in the night by moonlight, and did see clearly the likeness of this woman grievously oppressing me; in which miserable condition she held me, unable to help myself till near day. I told Bishop of this; but she denied it, and threatened me very much. Quickly after this, being at home on a Lord's Day, with the doors shut about me, I saw a black pig approach me, at which I, going to kick, it vanished away. Immediately after sitting down, I saw a black thing jump in at the window and come and stand before me. The body was like that of a monkey, the feet like a cock's; but the face was much like a man's. I was so extremely affrighted, that I could not speak. This monster spoke to me and said: "'I am a messenger sent unto you, for I understand that you are in some trouble of mind, and if you be ruled by me, you shall want for nothing in this world.' "Whereupon, I endeavored to clap my hands upon it; but I could feel no substance; and it jumped out of the window again; but it immediately came in by the porch, though the doors were shut, and said: "'You had better take my counsel.' "Whereupon, I struck at it with my stick, but struck only the ground-sel, and broke my stick. The arm with which I struck was presently disenabled, and it vanished away. I presently went out at the porch door and spied this Bishop, in her orchard, going toward her house; but I had not power to set one foot forward unto her. Whereupon, returning into the house, I was immediately accosted by the monster I had seen before, which goblin was now going to fly at me; whereat I did cry out: "'The whole armor of God be between me and you!' "So it sprang back and flew over the apple tree, shaking many apples off the tree in its flying over. At its leap, it flung dirt with its feet against my stomach, whereon, I was then struck dumb, and so continued for three days together." The records of the case on trial shows that William Stacy testified: "I received money of this Bishop for work done by me, and I was gone but a matter of three rods from her, when, looking for my money, I found it unaccountably gone from me. Some time after, Bishop asked me if my father would grind her grist for her? I demanded why not? "'Because folks count me a witch.' "I answered: "'No question but he will grind for you.' "Being gone about six rods from her, with a small load in my cart, suddenly the off wheel stumped and sank down into a hole, upon plain ground, so that I was forced to get help for the recovering of the wheel; but, stepping back to look for the hole which might give me this disaster, there was none at all to be found. Some time after, I was waked in the night; but it seemed as light as day, and I perfectly saw the shape of this Bishop in the room, troubling me; but upon her going out, all was dark again. When I afterward charged Bishop with it, she did not deny it, but was very angry. Quickly after this, having been threatened by Bishop, as I was again in a dark night, going to the barn, I was very suddenly taken or lifted from the ground, and thrown against a stone wall. After that, I was hoisted up and thrown down a bank, at the end of my house. After this, again passing by this Bishop, my horse with a small load, striving to draw, all his gears flew to pieces, and the cart fell down, and I, going to lift a bag of corn, of about two bushels, could not budge it." The foregoing is a sample of the testimony on which people were hung. We have given these, that the reader may see what firm hold Mr. Parris and superstition had on the people. We could give page after page of this testimony; but the above is sufficient. If the reader wants a fuller account of the trials of Bishop, Martin or any of the unfortunates who suffered death at Salem during the reign of superstition, we refer them to the collections of Cotton Mather in his "Invisible World." From that book we quote the following information, as elicited by the examination in case of Susanna Martin, at Salem, June 29th, 1692: Magistrate.--"Pray, what ails these people?" Martin.--"I don't know." Magistrate.--"But what do you think of them?" Martin.--"I don't desire to spend my judgment upon it." Magistrate.--"Don't you think they are bewitched?" Martin.--"No; I do not think they are." Magistrate.--"Tell us your thoughts about them." Martin.--"No; my thoughts are my own, when they are in; but when they are out, they are another's. Their master----" Magistrate.--"Their master? Whom do you think is their master?" Martin.--"If they be dealing in the black art, you may know as well as I." Magistrate.--"Well, what have you done toward this?" Martin.--"Nothing at all." Magistrate.--"Why, 'tis you, or your appearance." Martin.--"I cannot help it." Magistrate.--"If it be not your master, how comes your appearance to hurt these?" Martin.--"How do I know? He that appeared in the shape of Samuel, a glorified saint, may appear in any one's shape." No wonder that a writer having occasion to examine into the evidence a few years ago, and commenting on it, should exclaim: "Great God! and is this the road our ancestors had to travel in their pilgrimage in quest of freedom and Christianity? Are these the misunderstood doctrines of total depravity?" Reverend Mr. Noyes seemed to rival Mr. Parris in the persecution of witches. "You are a witch. You know you are," he said to Sarah Good, while urging her to confession. "You are a liar," the poor woman replied, "and, if you take my life, God will give you blood to drink." Confessions became important in the prosecutions. Some, not afflicted before confession, were so, presently, after it. The jails were filled; for fresh accusations were needed to confirm the confessions. Mr. Hale says: "Some, by these their accusations of others, hoped to gain time, and get favor from the rulers. Some of the inferior sort of people did ill offices, by promising favor thereby, more than they had ground to engage. Some, under these temptations, regarded not as they should what became of others, so that they could thereby serve their own turns. Some have since acknowledged so much. If the confessions were contradictory; if witnesses uttered apparent falsehoods, 'the Devil,' the judges would say, 'takes away their memory, and imposes on their brain.'" Who, under such circumstances, would dare to be skeptical, or refuse to believe the confessors? Already, twenty persons had been put to death for witchcraft. Fifty-five had been tortured or terrified into penitent confessions. With accusations, confessions increased; with confessions, new accusations. Even "the generation of the children of God" were in danger of "falling under that condemnation." The jails were full. One hundred and fifty prisoners awaited trial, two hundred more were accused or suspected. It was also observed that no one of the condemned confessing witchcraft had been hanged. No one that confessed, and retracted a confession, had escaped either hanging or imprisonment for trial. No one of the condemned who asserted innocence, even if one of the witnesses confessed to perjury, or the foreman of the jury acknowledged the error of the verdict, escaped the gallows. Favoritism was shown in listening to accusations, which were turned aside from friends or partisans. If a man began a career as a witch-hunter, and, becoming convinced of the imposture, declined the service, he was accused and hanged. Samuel Parris had played a strong hand and was more than successful. His harvest of vengeance seemed to have no end. Witches' Hill became a Tyburn-hill, and as many as eight were hung at one time. Matters had at last gone too far. The delusion reached its climax in the midsummer of 1692, and on the second Wednesday in October following, about a fortnight after the last hanging at Salem, the representatives of the colony assembled, and the people of Andover, their minister joining with them, appeared with their remonstrance against the doings of witch tribunals. "We know not," they said, "who can think himself safe, if the accusation of children and others under a diabolical influence shall be received against persons of good fame." The discussions which ensued were warm, for Mr. Parris had defenders even in the legislature, who denounced Charles and Hattie Stevens "as murderers and exercisers of the black art." The general court did not place itself in direct opposition to the advocates of the trials. It ordered by bill a convocation of ministers, that the people might be led in the right way, as to the witchcraft. The reason for doing it and the manner were such, that the judges of the court, so wrote one of them, "consider themselves thereby dismissed." As to legislature, it adopted what King William rejected--the English law, word for word, as it was enacted by a house of commons, in which Coke and Bacon were the guiding minds; but they abrogated the special court, and established a tribunal by statute. Phipps had, instantly on his arrival, employed his illegal court in hanging the witches. The representatives of the people delayed the first assembling of the legal court till January of the following year. Thus an interval of more than three months from the last executions gave the public mind security and freedom. Though Phipps conferred the place of chief judge on Stoughton, yet jurors, representing the public mind, acted independently. When the court met at Salem, six women of Andover, at once renouncing their confessions, treated the witchcraft but as something "so called," the bewildered but as "seemingly afflicted." A memorial of like tenor come from the inhabitants of Andover. More than one-half of the cases presented were dismissed; and, though bills were found against twenty-six persons, the trials showed the feebleness of the testimony on which others had been condemned. The minds of the juries had become enlightened, even before the prejudiced judges. The same testimony was produced, and there at Salem, with Stoughton on the bench, verdicts of acquittal followed. One of the parties acquitted on this occasion was an old acquaintance. Mr. Henry Waters, who had been arrested for his brother and taken to Virginia, suddenly appeared in Salem. John Louder, at once cried out against him and caused him to be arrested. On being arraigned, he plead not guilty and was put on his trial. John Louder was the principal witness. He stated that one day he and Bly were hunting and that defendant pursued them and bewitched their guns. Then he testified that he fired a silver bullet and wounded the defendant. He also testified to his appearing before him on the evening he went to stalk deer, and offering him a book to sign. It was known that the accused had suffered from a wound. Mr. Waters then proceeded to explain: "My name is Henry Waters, and, in early life, my brother and I were players. We were members of the Church of England and detested the Catholic Religion. The end of Charles II. was drawing near, and we reasoned that James II., his brother, would become heir to the throne. Our only hope was to organize a strong party and seize the throne for the Duke of Monmouth. I was sent to the American colonies to secure pledges of support, and get the names of all who would resist a papal monarch on my book. I came, leaving my brother and his child in England. On the way here, I was suddenly fired upon by an Indian in ambush and wounded in the side. As these men were stalking a deer I passed along and affrighted the animal, so it ran away, and I was for this accused of being a wizard." He was then asked by the examining magistrate, if he did offer a book to Mr. John Louder to sign. "I did," he quickly answered. "When was it?" "At the time and place he states." "What book was it?" "I have it here," and he produced a small, red-backed blank book. "This has caused so much trouble. Examine it, and you will see it was to contain only the names of those who would resist the accession of the Duke of York to the throne." The book was passed around to the Judge and Jury, and a smile dawned on the face of each, which was dangerous to the friends of the prosecution. That book would have hung Henry Waters during the reign of James II.; but now it was his salvation. He was one of the first acquitted. The delusion was on the wane. "Error died among its worshippers." CHAPTER XIX. THE WOMAN IN BLACK. The greatest of thy follies is forgiven, Even for the least of all the tears that shine On that pale face of thine. Thou didst kneel down, to him who came from heaven, Evil and ignorant, and thou shalt rise, Holy, and pure, and wise. --Bryant. Charles Stevens, his mother and Cora and her wounded father found safety and shelter at the home of Richard Stevens in Boston. Richard Stevens was an uncle to Charles, and a man past middle life, but noted for his practical common sense. Like all others of this noted family, he never rose high in either social or political circles. They were simply farmers or small tradesmen, with more than average intelligence, patriotic and honest as their great progenitor, who came over with Columbus. Richard Stevens knew that the delusion of witchcraft could not last. In his house, which was among the best in Boston, save those occupied by the governors and officers, the fugitives, save Mr. Waters, remained all during the latter part of 1692. As soon as his wound was healed, George Waters, mysteriously disappeared. He reached Williamsburg, Va., just after his brother was acquitted. He did not meet with Henry, for he had already taken a ship for Boston. George Waters went to Robert Stevens, where he made himself known and learned of his brother's acquittal. "The mistake was soon discovered," said Robert Stevens; "even before the case came on to be tried. Hearing that you had been arrested, I went to see you and discovered that they had the wrong man; then I procured his release." George Waters thanked Mr. Stevens for what he had done. "What are you going to do now?" asked Robert. "I shall return to Boston." "He will never cease to follow you." "No." Then Mr. Waters again became thoughtful, and Robert asked: "Are you going to slay him?" "No. Did Charles Stevens write to you?" "Yes." "Concerning the pardon?" "He did." "And have you done everything?" "Everything that can be done." "Do you bid me hope?" "Yes." That night George Waters set out by land to return to New England. It was a formidable journey in those days, and required many weeks. There were large rivers to be crossed, and he had to go to the headwaters before he could swim them. Many days and nights did the lone traveller spend in the forest. One afternoon he was suddenly aware of a man pursuing him. Instinctively, he knew it was his enemy Joel Martin. The man was alone, and George Waters, who was an expert marksman, could have waylaid and shot him. Martin came to seek his life, and, ordinarily, one might say that he was fully justified in killing him. George paused on the crest of a high hill, and with the declining sun full on him, watched the determined pursuer. "Joel Martin is a brave man," thought Mr. Waters. "He is as brave as he is revengeful." Martin was almost a mile away; but he clearly saw the figure of the horseman and supposed he had halted to challenge him to battle. Martin unslung his rifle and urged his jaded steed forward at a gallop, waving his weapon in the air. "I might be tempted to do it," George Waters thought, and he took his gun from his back, threw it on the ground and rode away. Joel Martin, who witnessed the strange proceeding, was puzzled to know what it meant. He came up to the gun of his enemy and saw him riding rapidly across the hills and rocks. "Now he is at my mercy," cried Martin. "The fool hath thrown away his gun to increase his speed." George Waters was fully a mile ahead of Joel Martin, when he heard the sharp report of a rifle followed by the crack of two or three muskets, accompanied by an Indian yell. Waters felt his heart almost stand still. He sought shelter in a dense thicket on the banks of a stream to await the shadows of night. He wondered what had become of Martin, and when he heard the yells of savages as he frequently did, he asked himself if they were not torturing the unfortunate prisoner to death. When night came, he saw a bright fire burning further down the creek, and, leaving his horse tied to a bush, the brave Englishman crept through the woods, crawling most of the way. At last he was near enough to see a score of savages sitting about a camp fire. Near by, tied to a tree was the miserable Virginian. Mr. Waters saw that he had two wounds, and was no doubt suffering greatly. His horse had been killed and afforded a feast for the savages, who evidently had not yet decided the rider's fate. Having feasted until their stomachs were overgorged, the Indians lay down upon the ground and fell asleep. Their prisoner was severely wounded and tied with stout deer-skin thongs, so that it would be utterly impossible for him to escape, and in the heart of this great wilderness the dusky sons slept in perfect security. George Waters crept up closer and closer to the prisoner, and had to actually crawl between two sleeping savages, to reach him; then he slowly rose at the feet of Martin, who, unable to sleep for pain, was the only human being in the camp awake. The prisoner saw him approaching, saw him draw his knife, and expected to be killed by his enemy; but he made no outcry. Better be stabbed to the heart by George Waters than tortured by his fiendish captors. George Waters cut the deer-skin thongs which bound him to the tree and, in a whisper, asked: "Can you walk?" "No." "I will carry you." He took the wounded man on his own broad shoulders, and carefully bore him from the camp. Not a word was said. Joel Martin's tongue seemed suddenly to have become paralyzed. George Waters walked slowly, carefully, and silently. The Indians slept. When they were some distance from the camp, Martin, entertaining but one idea of Waters' plan, said: "You have gone far enough with me. Stop right here and have it over with. I shall make no outcry." "Joel Martin, you are a brave man, I know,----" began Mr. Waters; but Martin again interrupted him with: "I shall make no outcry. You have a knife in your belt. Stab me, and be done with it." "I shall not." "Where are you going to take me?" "To my horse." Martin grumbled at the useless delay, but suffered himself to be carried to the horse. "Can you ride?" Waters asked. "Yes." "I will help you to the saddle, and, if you think there is danger of your falling, I can tie you." He assisted the wounded man into the saddle and took the rein in his hand, saying, "Hold, and I will lead." "George Waters, where are you going with me?" "To Virginia." "Can it be that you intend to spare my life?" "I have no occasion to take it." The crestfallen Virginian said no more. All night long they journeyed through the forests and across plains. At dawn of day they were among the mountains. They rested and George Waters kept watch over the wounded man while he slept. By the middle of the afternoon, they were on the march again. Mr. Martin's wounds were inflamed and sore, and he was in a fever. Next day they reached the village of some friendly Indians, and remained there two weeks, until the wounded man was able to proceed. George Waters went with him until they were in sight of a village on the upper James River. "I can go no further, Mr. Martin," said George Waters. "I understand," he returned, dismounting from the saddle. "Can you make your way to those houses?" "Yes." "I will take you nearer, if necessary." "It is not." George Waters cut two stout sticks with forks to place under his arms as crutches. Martin watched his acts of kindness, while a softer expression came over his face. He was about to go away, but turned about and, seizing Waters by the hand, cried: "God bless you! You are a man!" Not willing to risk himself further he turned away, and George Waters re-entered the forest. He reached Boston early in 1692, just after the acquittal of his brother and others of the charge of witchcraft. Everybody realizing that the madness had run its course, Charles Stevens and his mother went back to their home at Salem, confident that they need fear no more persecutions from Parris, whose power was gone. [Illustration: George Waters cut stout sticks as crutches.] Next day after his arrival, while going down a lonely path near the village Charles suddenly came upon Sarah Williams. Her eyes were blazing with the fires of hope, fanaticism and disappointed pride. "Charles! Charles!" she cried. "Nay, do not turn away from me, for, as Heaven is my witness, I did not have your mother cried out upon!" "Sarah Williams, I am as willing as any to forget the past, or, if remember it I must, only think of it as a hideous nightmare from which, thanks to Providence, we have escaped forever." "Charles, let us be friends." "Far be it from me to be your enemy, Sarah Williams." "Can you not be more, Charles?" said the handsome widow, her dark eyes on the ground, while her cheek became suffused with a blush. "What mean you, Sarah Williams?" "You used to love me." The young man started and said: "You mistake." "I do not. You told me you did in the presence of Abigail Williams. At the same time you confessed to killing Samuel Williams in order to wed me." Charles Stevens was thunderstruck, and could only gaze in amazement on the bold, unscrupulous woman, who had trained under Parris, until she was capable of almost any deception to carry her point. "Sarah Williams, what you say is a lie!" he declared, in a voice hoarse with amazement and indignation. "We shall see! We shall see!" she answered, in a hoarse, shrill voice. "I will prove it. See, I will prove it and hang you yet. Beware! I do not charge you with witchcraft, but with murder. Either take the place you made vacant by the death of Samuel Williams, or hang!" As least of the two evils, Charles Stevens intimated he preferred to hang, and, turning abruptly about, he left her. Next day he was met by Bly and Louder in the village, who interrogated him on his recent trouble with Sarah Williams about the dead husband. Knowing both to be outrageous liars, and unscrupulous as they were bold, he sought to avoid them; but they followed him everywhere and interrogated him, until he was utterly disgusted and finally broke away and went home. Charles Stevens did not tell his mother of the threat of Sarah Williams, for he considered it too absurd to notice. Three or four days later, when he had almost ceased to think of the matter, he and his mother were startled from their supper, by hearing a loud knock at the front door. "Sit you still, Charles, and I will go and see who this late visitor is." She rose and went to the door and opened it. Three or four dark forms stood without. "Is Charles Stevens in?" asked one. "Yes, sir." "I want to see him." "Who are you?" "Don't you know me, Hattie Stevens? I am the sheriff," said the speaker boldly, as he, unbidden, entered the house. "You the sheriff! What can you want here?" Turning to the men without, he said in an undertone: "Guard the doors." The dumfounded mother repeated: "You the sheriff! What do you want here?" "I want to see that precious son of yours, widow Stevens, and I trow he will guess the object of my visit." "My son! Surely he hath done no wrong. He hath broken no law." "Where is he?" The voice of the sheriff was pitched considerably above the ordinary key, and Charles Stevens, hearing it in the kitchen, became alarmed, and hastened into the front apartment, saying: "I am here. Is it me you want to see?" "Yes, Charles Stevens, I arrest you in the king's name." "Arrest me? Marry! what offence have I done that I should be arrested by the king's officers?" "It is murder!" he answered. "Murder!" shrieked both the mother and son. "Verily, it is," answered the sheriff. Then he produced a warrant issued on the complaint of Sarah Williams, charging Charles Stevens with the murder of one Samuel Williams. Charles could scarcely believe his ears, when he heard the warrant read. He had for a long time known Sarah Williams to be a bold, scheming woman; but that she would proceed to such a bold, desperate measure as this seemed impossible. "I am innocent!" he declared, while his mother sank into a chair and buried her face in her hands. "It is ever thus. The most guilty wretch on earth is innocent according to his tell," the sheriff answered. Charles Stevens besought the man not to confine him in jail, but was told there was no help for it, and he was hurried away to prison, leaving his mother overcome with grief in her chair. * * * * * * * It was some days before the news of Charles Stevens' arrest reached Boston. The prosecution was interested in keeping the matter from the friends of the accused, for the Stevens family were known to have many friends in high places in the colonies, and they might interfere in the coming trial. Cora Waters lived for weeks in ignorance of the peril of the man she loved. Her father had come home, her uncle was with them again, and she was almost happy. Poor child of misfortune, she had never known real happiness. Bleak winter was taking his departure and a smiling spring promised to be New England's guest. Hope and peace and newness of life always come with spring. Spring gladdens the heart and rejuvenates the aged. One morning, while the frosty breath of winter yet lingered on the air, Cora Waters, who was an early riser, saw a large ship entering the harbor. The wind was dead against the vessel; but she was skillfully handled and tacked this way and that and gradually worked her way into the harbor. A wreath of smoke from one of her ports was followed by the heavy report of a cannon, which salute was answered by a shot from the shore. "The ship will soon be in," the girl declared. "I will go and see it." In small seaport towns, such as Boston was at that day, the appearance of a ship caused as much excitement as the arrival of a train on a new railroad in a western village does to-day. Many people were hastening down to the beach where the boat would bring in passengers. Some were expecting friends. Others had letters from loved ones across the sea; but Cora had no such excuse. It was simply girlish curiosity which induced her to go with the crowd to the beach. Boats had been lowered from the vessel, which, having no deck, could not get into shore and was forced to cast anchor some distance off. The boats, filled with passengers, were rowed ashore. Cora stood with a careless, idle air gazing on the gentlemen and ladies as they disembarked. None specially excited her interest. Many were there greeting relatives and friends; but she had no friend or relative, and what were all those people to her? She was about to turn away, when a face and pair of dark-blue eyes attracted her attention. She involuntarily started and stared impudently at the stranger, her heart beating, and her breath coming in short quick gasps. "That face--that face! I have seen in my dreams!" she thought. It was the pale face of a woman, still beautiful, although her features showed lines of suffering and anxiety. She was dressed in black from head to foot, and a veil of jet black was wound round her head. For a few moments, she stood looking about and then came directly to Cora and asked: "Young maid, do you live in this town?" "I do, for the present," Cora answered, though she instinctively trembled, for that voice, too, sounded like a long-forgotten dream. What strange spell was this which possessed her? The woman asked: "Can you direct me to a house of public entertainment?" "Come with me." Cora knew that the lady had suffered with seasickness, and was anxious to reach land. She hastened with her to a public house kept by a widow Stevens, whose husband was a distant relative of Charles. As they walked up the hill toward the house, the woman continued to ply Cora with questions: "Are you a native of America?" she asked. "No." "England is your birth-place?" "It is." "Have you been long here?" "I was quite a child when I came," she answered. "Have you lived a long while in this town?" "Only a few months," she answered. They had nearly reached their destination, when Cora saw her father coming toward them. At sight of his daughter's companion, the face of the father became white as death, and, bounding forward, he pulled her aside, saying: "No, no! Cora, you shall not go another step with her!" At sound of his voice, the woman in black seized his arm and cried: "George! George! George!" "Away! away!" "No, no! Now that I have found you, I will not let you go. You may kill me, cut off my hands, and still the fingers will cling to you. Oh, God! I thank thee, that, after so many years, thou hast answered my prayers!" "Woman, release me!" "George! George!" Cora was lost in a maze of bewilderment. She was conscious of the strange woman in black clutching her father's arm and calling him George, while he strove to drive her away. A great throng of people gathered about them. Mr. Waters became rude in his efforts to break away. At last he flung her off, and she fell, her forehead striking on the sharp corner of a stone, which started the blood trickling down her fair white brow. The woman swooned. Sight of blood touched the heart of George Waters, and, stooping, he raised the inanimate form in his arms, as tenderly as if she had been an infant, and bore her to a public house and a private room. When the woman in black recovered consciousness, she and George Waters were alone, and he was tenderly dressing the wound he had made. "George," she said with a smile, "you will let me talk with you now?" "Yes." "George, you believed me guilty when you abandoned me at Edinburgh?" "Yes." "You do yet?" "I do." "George, Joseph Swartz told you a falsehood." "No, no, woman, do not----" "Hold, George; let me show you his dying confession. Let me show you the testimony of a priest." She took up a small, red leather bag, such as was used in those days by ladies, undid the strings and, opening it, drew forth some papers, which she handed to him. "Do you know the writing?" she asked. "This is Joseph Swartz, my best and truest friend." "No, no; read his death-bed confession, and you will see he was your malignant foe." He read the paper through, and his hands trembled with excitement, astonishment and rage. He was about to say something, when she interrupted him with: "No, no; don't, don't, George. He is dead--let us forgive. If you want more proof, I have it. See Father Healey's statement. He took Joseph Swartz's confession." Glancing at the paper, he threw it aside and cried: "Honore! Honore! Forgive me! I should have believed you, not him. I stole your child and, like a foolish man, ran away, without questioning you." "I have been sixteen years seeking these proofs. I would not have come without them. You are forgiven, for, now that you have the proof, you believe." When George Waters went out of the room, he was met by his daughter, Cora, who asked: "Father, who is she--the woman in black?" "An angel--your mother!" "May I see her?" "Yes, at once," and he led her to the apartment. CHAPTER XX. CONCLUSION. How calm, how beautiful comes on The stilly hour, when storms are gone; When warring winds have died away, And clouds, beneath the glancing ray, Melt off, and leave the land and sea Sleeping in bright tranquillity, Fresh as if day again were born, Again upon the lap of Morn. --Moore. In his dungeon cell, Charles Stevens learned that the veil of mystery which, like a threatening cloud, had enshrouded the life of Cora Waters was lifted, and the sunlight, for the first time, streamed upon her soul. She knew a mother's love. Her parents, estranged since her infancy, were again united. Such incidents are told in song and story, but are seldom known in reality. Charles heard the story in all its details related by his mother on one of her visits. He also learned that the colony of Virginia, by royal sanction, had granted a pardon to Mr. George Waters for the "death of one James Martin, late overseer to Thomas Hull." "I am glad they are happy, mother," the unhappy prisoner said. "It is the reward which in the end awaits the just," she said. "They have forgotten me." "Charles, why say you that?" "Had not Cora Waters forgotten me, surely she would have visited me while sick and in prison." "They have just heard of it," she answered. "Just heard of it!" he repeated, amazed. "I have lain here pining in this dungeon for three long weeks, and you tell me they have but just heard of it." "I am assured they have." "Mother, that seems impossible. Why, I thought all the world knew it." "But few know of it, my son. It seems to be the scheme of the prosecution to keep the matter secret. You have not written. You have sent no message?" "No, mother." "Then, pray, how could they learn of it save by the merest accident? A passing stranger bore the news." Charles Stevens heaved a sigh. "Perhaps 'tis so; but it seemed that my groans and sighs must be heard round the world, yet neither Cora Waters nor Adelpha Leisler, at whose side I stood a comforter in the dark hours of trouble, has seen fit to offer me one word of consolation." "I trow, Charles, that Adelpha knows it not. Cora is coming." "Who hath told you?" "A friend from Boston brings information that the Waters brothers, with the newly found wife and mother and Cora, are coming to Salem to do all in their power to aid you." Charles sadly shook his head and said: "My poor friends can do nothing for me." "They can at least offer you consolation and comfort." "Yes; but what more?" "That is much." "True; and I will appreciate it. I could not think that Cora would forget me. Neither would Adelpha, if she knew." His mother after waiting some time for her son to resume, at last said: "Charles, if your choice were left you, which of the two, Adelpha or Cora, would you wed?" Charles, smiling, answered: "Mother, it is not for one living within the shadow of the scaffold to think of marriage." "Charles, can you really think your case so serious?" "I do mother. I know it." "Oh, Charles, surely they will not condemn you! They have no proof. You are innocent." "I am innocent, mother; but that is no reason that evidence will not be produced against me." "Yet it will be false." "False, of course; yet many have been hung on testimony false as Satan himself." "Oh, Charles, what shall we do?" "Trust in the Lord, mother. When all earthly help is gone, we can only look to God for aid. I have prayed to him that, if it be his will, this cup might pass; yet his will, not mine, be done. If I must die a martyr to that woman's falsehood, I pray he may give me sufficient strength to endure the trial." The mother fell on the neck of her son, crying: "You shall not die! Oh, my son! my son!" Charles comforted his mother as well as he could, and she took her leave. All was dark and gloomy. He knew that malice and hatred pursued him, caught his throat and would not let go its hold, until it dragged him to death. He was buried in the midst of his gloomy reflections, when the door of his cell opened, and a jailer, entering, said: "Another visitor for you, Charles Stevens." "Another visitor? Who can it be?" he asked. "It is I," and Samuel Parris entered. For a moment, Charles Stevens was struck dumb at the audacity of the pastor of Salem in venturing to enter the cell of one whom he had wronged. Though the power of Mr. Parris was on the wane, it was not wholly gone. He took advantage of the confusion of Charles Stevens to signal the jailer to leave them, and he went out, closing the iron door behind him. Folding his arms on his breast, Parris gazed on the prisoner. Charles Stevens, about whose waist was a thick belt of leather, fastened by a chain to the wall, sat on a miserable cot, his face bowed in his hands. He did not look up at the white, cadaverous face and great, blazing orbs, which gleamed with fury upon him, although he knew full well that those eyes were on him. "Charles!" the deep sepulchral voice at last spoke. "Well?" "Look up." With a sigh, the young prisoner raised his head. Every movement he made was accompanied by the rattling of chains. "Charles, you will not believe me, when I tell you I am sorry for this." "No; I will not." "Nevertheless, I am. Charles Stevens, you do not know me; the world misjudges me, and all future generations will do the same. Some things which I have done may seem harsh; yet I was commanded of Heaven to do them." "Samuel Parris, if you have come to upbraid me, to gloat over my captivity and add to my misery, do so. I am powerless and cannot resist you; but I do entreat you not to blaspheme your Maker." The great eyes of Parris gleamed with sullen fire; his thin lips parted; his breath came short and quick, and for a few moments he was unable to answer. At last, becoming calmer, he said, in his deep sepulchral voice: "Charles, you do not like me?" "I confess it." "I have rebuked you for your sinful associations, and the wicked dislike rebuke. The devils said to the Saviour, when he would cast them out, 'Let us alone; we have naught to do with thee.' Everywhere in this life, the sinner says, 'Leave me alone,' yet it is my calling to go forth and snatch brands from the burning. Charles, why will you not denounce the child of that player?" "She hath done no wrong." "Do you love her?" "That is a question you have no right to ask, or expect me to answer." "I have read it in your heart." "I have no answer." "What have you to say in extenuation of your conduct hitherto?" "Nothing." "Why did you return to Salem?" "It is my home." "Did you anticipate this accusation?" "No." "And what do you expect now?" "Death." "Have you no hope of escaping?" "None." "But you seem calm and collected." "Why should I not?" "Most men fear death." "True." "And do not you?" "I would rather live." "What would you consent to do to save your life?" "Nothing dishonorable." "What I am about to propose is by no means dishonorable, but honorable and fair in every particular." "Proceed." "You are charged with the death of Samuel Williams. Whether you be guilty or not, it is quite clear that Williams is dead. Now it is the duty of some one to care for the widow. She is young----" "Hold, Mr. Parris! If you are going to propose that I shall wed Sarah Williams, spare your words; I will not." "Charles Stevens, do you seek death?" [Illustration: "Charles Stevens, do you seek death?"] "None should wed where the heart is not. That bold, unscrupulous woman has already won my contempt." "Have a care!" "Go tell her that Charles Stevens prefers death on the gibbet to becoming her husband." Mr. Parris gazed on the helpless prisoner for several minutes, his thin lips curled with a sneering smile. "Charles Stevens," he said in low measured tones, "you are a fool. Do you know what it is to die? Have you counted the cost of a leap in the dark?" "No sane man courts death; yet to the Christian, who hath kept God's commands, the monster is robbed of half his terrors. God has wisely constituted us so that we dread death. If we did not, we would not be willing to endure the misfortunes, disappointments and ills which afflict us from the cradle to the grave; but the Christian can say welcome to death in preference to dishonor. I thank my God, Samuel Parris, that I can, with the prophets of old, say, O, grave, where is thy victory?" "Charles Stevens, have you ever thought that, after all, this, too, may be a delusion? That the Bible may be only the uninspired work of man, and that there may be no beyond--no God, save in nature?" "So you have turned atheist?" cried Charles. "Perhaps you have been one all along?" "Charles Stevens, one cannot help their doubts." "One need not be a hypocrite, Mr. Parris. One can even drive doubts away. The true Christian never doubts and never fears. Pray for faith, have faith in your prayers, believe and ask God to help your unbelief, and doubts will disappear." "Charles, you are too young, too wise to die. Accept Sarah Williams and live." "Never! Away, hypocrite! Schemer, begone!" The pastor, quite humbled, turned and went from the prison. There was a malignant gleam in his great wicked eyes, which boded the unfortunate prisoner no good. For several weeks longer, Charles Stevens languished in prison. Cora, her father and mother came to Salem and visited him. When Cora Waters gazed on the young man, from whom she had parted a few weeks before in the full vigor of his young life and strength, and saw him emaciated, weak and pale, so that she scarcely knew him, she broke down and wept. The two were left alone in the cell. Then Charles told her how uncertain were his chances of life, and how impending his prospects of death. He could not quit this life without telling her that he loved her, and that he wished to live to make her his wife. Though that pleasure was forever denied him, it would make his last days more agreeable to know that his love was returned. What answer could she make? She, whose fondest hope this had been, said nothing; but, with heart overflowing, she threw her arms about the prisoner and burst into tears. Had she won him only to lose him? Was he to be snatched from her side at the very moment that she found him her own? "No, no, no! they shall not! they shall not!" she sobbed. From that day, Cora shared the imprisonment of her lover, so far as the jailer would permit. She added to his comfort and assured him that her undying love would follow him to the grave. Their hopes rose and sank as the day of trial drew near. The fatal day came at last, and Charles was arraigned before the court of oyer and terminer on charge of the murder of one Samuel Williams. He plead not guilty and made every preparation for defense. It was like fighting a masked battery; for they knew not what the evidence would be against them. The trial opened, and Sarah Williams, to make the scene more effective, came dressed in black and looking very pale. She was called to the stand and, between tears and sobs, told her sad story of how her loving husband had one day quarrelled with the defendant, and the latter had threatened him. Was any one else present? Yes. John Bly and Mr. Louder were both present when he threatened to kill her husband. Charles Stevens remembered having a slight altercation when he was quite a boy with Mr. Williams; but it was such a trivial matter that he had forgotten it till now. Then she told that her loving husband feared he would be slain by Charles Stevens, and that he went away to New York city on a voyage, and that the same day Charles Stevens had come to her house, and had asked her whither her husband had gone, and she had every evidence to believe he went after him. There were other witnesses, who swore that about this time Charles Stevens left the town and was gone away for some time. Charles remembered that on that occasion he had taken a journey to Rhode Island. Then came two strangers, evidently sea-faring men, of the lowest order. They were brutal, unscrupulous and had lived the lives of buccaneers, as was afterward proved. Both swore that they knew the defendant, although he had never seen either before. They saw the defendant slay Samuel Williams on Long Island, near the beach, and both gave a graphic account of his dragging the body along the sand and hurling it into the water, where the tide bore it away. Their statements were corroborative. Bly and Louder were next produced, who gave evidence that the defendant had confessed to them that he had slain Samuel Williams, and that defendant was greatly enamored of the murdered man's wife. Mr. Parris and others testified to having seen him in the company of Sarah Williams on divers of times, and that he had shown great fondness for her. "What have you to say to this evidence?" asked the chief justice to the prisoner. "I can only say they are all grievous liars." "The jury will take notice how the defendant assaults men of unquestioned character. Even the minister is assailed." There was a murmur of discontent, in which even some of the jury joined. Judges, jury and prosecutors were all against Charles, and his trial must result in conviction. The people were excited at the dastardly murder, and began to complain at the delay in the trial, which wore tediously on day after day for nearly a week. At last the evidence was all in, and the last argument made. There was everything against the prisoner. The prosecution had been so skillfully planned and executed, that there could be but one result. Charles Stevens was very calm, while Cora was carried away in a fainting condition. Mr. Waters went to the prisoner to speak with him. Charles' face was white as death; but his mind was clear and showed not the least agitation. "There can be but one result," the prisoner said. "An acquittal is impossible. Be good to Cora and mother, and keep them both away on that day. It would be too much for them. They would not forget it to their dying hour." Mr. Waters assured him that his last requests should be granted, and spoke a few words of consolation and hope. So many good people of late had perished on the gibbet, that hanging was no longer ignominious. The best and purest had died thus. The jury had been out but a few moments, when a great hub-bub arose without, and voices could be heard crying: "Wait! wait! stay your verdict!" A crowd of men rushed into the court room with a tall young man, whose weather-beaten face indicated a seafaring life, at the head of them. His cruel gray eyes, bold manner, as well as the pistols and cutlass at his belt, gave him the appearance of a pirate. "I am not dead, I trow! Who said I was dead?" he asked. "Samuel Williams! Alive!" cried a score of voices. "Who said I was murdered?" Sarah Williams rose with a shriek and stared at her husband, as if he had been an apparition, while all the witnesses, including the Rev. Mr. Parris, were covered with confusion. The jury was recalled and Samuel Williams himself took the stand. He stated: "I left my wife, because I could not live with her, and, marry! I would prefer hanging to existence with her. I went to New York, where Captain Robert Kidd was beating up recruits to sail as a privateer in the _Adventurer_ to protect commerce against the French privateers and sea-robbers. I enlisted and then, with one hundred and fifty men, Kidd did good service on the American coast, and we went to the Indian Ocean to attack pirates. Our plunder from the pirates made us long to gain more booty, and Kidd became a pirate himself. Armed with cutlasses and pistols, we were made to board many vessels, English as well as other nationalities. We went to South America, the West Indies, and finally came to New York, where Captain Kidd, one dark night, landed on Gardiner's Island, east of Long Island, with an enormous treasure of gold, jewels and precious stones, which he buried in the earth. From there we came to Boston. A pardon had been granted for all, save Kidd, who was yesterday arrested and sent to England to be tried.[F] I heard that a man had been arrested for my murder, and I hastened to save him." [Footnote F: Kidd was subsequently tried, condemned, and hung in chains; but his treasure on Gardiner's Island has not to this day been found.] The romantic story of the returned pirate produced the most profound sensation among the people in the court room. The jury had just voted on a verdict of guilty, when they were recalled, and instructed to give a verdict of acquittal, which they did. Mr. Parris retired in humiliation and disgrace. Cora fainted in her rescued lover's arms, while Mrs. Stevens, falling on her knees, thanked God that the light of Heaven at last shone on the path so long dark. Cora's mother came to take her from the liberated prisoner; but he would not give her up, holding her until she regained consciousness, when all went home together, a happy and united family. Almost in the twinkling of an eye, the delusion was dispelled, and many who had been wrong hastened, so far as in them lay to make reparation. The bigoted and fanatical, if we may not say hypocritical preachers, were displaced by God-fearing, righteous ministers, who were more liberal, exercising common sense, and possessing humanity as well as godliness, which is ever essential to a good minister. They were liberal, even to the player's child as well as to the players themselves. George and Henry Waters both became citizens of Salem, and Charles and Cora were married three months after the acquittal of the former. Their lives were eventful, with as much happiness as is commonly allotted to mortals of earth, and they left nine children, all brought up in the fear of the Lord, and lovers of liberty. Witchcraft prosecutions were doomed, and shortly after the acquittal of Charles Stevens in so singular a manner, they altogether ceased to prosecute. The imprisoned witches and wizards were reprieved and set free. Reluctant to yield, the party of superstition were resolved on one conviction. The victim selected was Sarah Daston, a woman eighty years old, who, for twenty years, had borne the undisputed reputation of a witch. If ever there was a witch in the world, she, it was said, was one. Her trial was conducted at Charlestown in the presence of a great throng. There was more evidence against her than any tried at Salem; but the common mind disenthralled of the hideous delusion asserted itself, through the jury by a verdict of acquittal. Cotton Mather, who was thoroughly imbued with the delusion, to cover his confusion, got up a case of witchcraft in his own parish. He averred that miracles were wrought in Boston. Cotton Mather does not seem to have been bloodthirsty, though he was more anxious to protect his vanity than his parishioners, and his bewitched neophyte, profiting by his cautions, was afflicted by veiled spectres. The imposture was promptly exposed to ridicule by one who was designated as "a malignant, calumnious, and reproachful man, a coal from hell." It was the uncultured, but rational, Robert Calef. Cotton Mather wrote and spoke much on the subject of witchcraft, long after the delusion had vanished. [Illustration: Cotton Mather.] The inexorable indignation of the people of Salem Village drove Parris from the place. Noyes confessed his error and guilt, asked forgiveness and devoted the remainder of his life to deeds of charity. Sewall, one of the judges, by rising in his pew in the Old South meeting-house on a fast day, and reading to the whole congregation a paper, in which he bewailed his great offence, recovered public esteem. Stoughton and Cotton Mather never repented. The former lived proud, unsatisfied and unbeloved. The latter attempted to persuade others and himself that he had not been specially active in the tragedy. His diary proves that he did not wholly escape the impeachment of conscience, for it is stated that Cotton Mather, who had sought the foundation of faith in tales of wonders himself, "had temptations to atheism and to the abandonment of all religion as a mere delusion." As when a storm clears away, it leaves the atmosphere clearer, so the common mind of New England became more wise. By employing a cautious spirit of search, eliminating error, rejecting superstition as tending toward cowardice and submission, the people cherished religion as a source of courage and a fountain of freedom, and forever after refused to separate belief from reason. The actual fate of Mr. Parris is not certainly known. Some have intimated that he died of a loathsome disease, others that, like Judas, he took his own life; but we are assured that he received his share of earthly torment for his base hypocrisy and cruel wrongs. Most of the people who pretended to be afflicted afterward made confessions admitting their error. Efforts were made by the legislature to make amends for some of the great wrongs done at Salem; but such wrongs can never be righted. The victims of Parris' hate and avarice have slept for two hundred years on Witches' Hill, and there await the trump that shall rouse the dead, when the just shall be separated from the unjust. Salem Village is peaceful, happy and quiet. In the gentle murmur of waves, the whisper of breezes and the laugh of babbling brooks, about the quaint old town, all nature seems to rejoice that the age of superstition has passed. THE END. [Illustration: Witches Hill.] HISTORICAL INDEX. Albany resists Leisler, 223 Albany Convention, resolutions of, 229 Andover remonstrates against the doings of the witch tribunes, 342 Andros, governor of New York, claims dominion of Connecticut, 102 Andros arrives at Hartford for charter, 104 Andros has a vice-royal commission to rule New York and all New England, 135 Andros seized, imprisoned and sent to England, 218 Anne's, Queen, war, 324 Archdale, governor of the Carolinias, 148 Arrival of William Penn at Newcastle, 30 Arrival of Sloughter in the _Beaver_, 228 Assembly meets at Philadelphia, 36 Assembly condemns Leisler and Milborne, 231 Baltimore, Lord. Penn makes satisfactory arrangements with him for Delaware, 34 Baltimore, Lord, goes to England, 137 Baltimore, Lord, death of, 139 Barclay, Quaker author, appointed governor of East Jersey, 142 Bayard receives Andros, 102 Bayard and Cortlandt oppose Leisler, 220 Berkeley, Lord, sells his interest in New Jersey, 140 Board of Trade and Plantations, 325 Boll, Captain, and Andros, 102 Bradford, William, first printer in Philadelphia, 37 Burroughs, Rev. George, rival of Parris, 330 Byllinge sells his interest in New Jersey to Penn, 141 Calvert, Leonard, death of, 139 Carteret, death of, 142 Casco, Maine, attacked by Indians, 312 Catholicism in New York under King James, 216 Charles II., his reign drawing to a close, 6 Charles Stuart (the Pretender), 326 Charter of Connecticut in mahogany box, 107 Charter Oak, story of, 109 Church establishment in Maryland, 139 Circle at Mr. Parris' house, 67 Cloyse, Mrs., arrested, 328 Connecticut refuses to surrender charter, 103 Coode's plot, 137 Coode in possession of the records of Maryland, 138 Culpepper, John, surveyor-general of North Carolinia, 147 Daston, Sarah, acquitted of witchcraft, 380 Delaware's independent legislature, 1703, 41 Deliverance Hobbs confesses to being a witch, 330 Dougan, Colonel, leaves New York, 217 Duke of Monmouth, 44 Duke of York, fears of, 6 Duke of York gives Penn a quitclaim deed to Delaware, 29 Duke of York releases the Jerseys, 142 Dustin, Mr., defending his children, 319 Dustin, Mrs., captured, 320 Dustin, Mrs., and fellow-captives slay ten Indians and escape, 322 Dustin, Hannah, monument of, 324 Easty, Mary, arrested for a witch, 328 East Jersey, Barclay appointed governor for, 142 Ennis, Episcopal preacher, misrepresents Leisler in interest of Nichols, 219 English Friends purchase New Jersey, 140 Escape of condemned witches, 302 Evidence against Rebecca Nurse, 265 Fenwick's first day in New Jersey, 140 Fits and witchcraft, 252 Fletcher succeeds Andros, 115 Fox, George, founder of Quakers, 25 Franklin, William, son of Dr. Benjamin Franklin, last royal governor of New Jersey, 144 Friends, the term applied to Quakers, 25 Frontenac fitting out expedition against Salmon Falls, 311 Good, Sarah, and little child arrested as witches, 253 Governor of New Jersey a tyrant, 144 Hale, Sir Mathew, on witchcraft, 235 Haverhill attacked by Indians, 317 Haverhill a second time attacked, 325 Heir of James II. to throne, 135 Holme, Thomas, the surveyor who aided Penn in laying out Philadelphia, 35 Hyde, Sir Edmund, governor of Jerseys, 144 Immigrants to South Carolinia, 150 Indented slaves, 46 Ingoldsby, Sloughter's captain, 229 Ingoldsby arrests Leisler and eight of his council, 230 James II. on the throne of England, 39 James II. sends agent to Rome to visit the Pope, 40 Jeffries, judge of the "Bloody Assizes,", 45 Jerseys, the, surrendered to the crown, 1702, 143 John, Mr. Parris' West Indian slave, 66 Jury acquits Rebecca Nurse, 272 Jury reconsiders verdict and convicts Rebecca Nurse, 273 Kidd, Captain Robert, the pirate, 377 Kidd, Captain, fate of, 378 King William's War, 308 Kirk hunting Monmouth's rebels, 44 Laws fashioned by William Penn, 36 Lawson, Rev. Deodat, at Salem, 276 Lawson, Rev. Deodat, and the bewitched, 278 Lawson interrupted in his sermon by the bewitched, 279 Legislatures in American colonies do not favor the malice of James II., 47 Leisler, Jacob, 216 Leisler seizes the garrison of New York, 218 Leisler sends an address to King William, 219 Leisler in charge of affairs at New York, 221 Leisler and Milborne arrested, 250 Leisler tried and condemned, 231 Leisler executed, 233 Leonardson, Samuel, escapes with Mrs. Dustin, 323 Locke and Cooper's scheme, 145 Markham, William, sent to take possession of Pennsylvania for William Penn, 28 Martin, Susanna, accused of being a witch, 246 Mary, eldest daughter of James II., marries Prince of Orange, 135 Maryland, how affected by the Revolution of 1688, 136 Maryland becomes a royal province, 138 Maryland, seat of government moved to Anne Arundel 139 Mather, Cotton, 249 Mather's, Cotton, Mexican argument, 184 Mather's, Cotton, triumph, 331 Mather's tendency to atheism, 381 Milborne, Jacob, son-in-law of Leisler, 219 Milborne, Jacob, captures Albany, 226 Milborne hung, 232 Monk, Duke of Albemarle, created viceroy over empire of North Carolinia, 145 Monmouth, Duke of, beheaded, 44 Morris commissioned governor of New Jersey, 144 Neff, Mrs., nurse to Mrs. Dustin, captured, 320 New Castle, arrival of Penn at, 30 New Englanders, character of, 5 New England settled by fugitives, 351 New Jersey divided into East and West Jersey, 141 Nicholson, lieutenant-governor of New York, 210 Nicholson misrepresents Leisler, 220 Nicholson made governor of Virginia, 221 Nicholson, governor of Maryland, sends Mrs. Dustin a silver tankard, 321 North Carolinia and the navigation act, 146 Noyes, Rev. Mr., and the eight firebrands of hell, 375 Nurse, Rebecca, arrested as a witch, 256 Nurse, Rebecca, trial of, 265 Nurse, Rebecca, acquitted, 272 Nurse, Rebecca, convicted and sentenced, 273 Nurse, Rebecca, excommunicated, 274 Nurse, Rebecca, hung, 275 Orange, Prince of, marries Princess Mary, 135 Parris, Samuel, minister at Salem, 65 Parris' circle, 251 Parris propagating the delusion of witchcraft, 258 Parris, fate of, unknown, 382 Penn, William, adopts the religion of a Quaker, 26 Penn's attention drawn to America--his charter, 27 Penn gets a quitclaim deed to Delaware from Duke of York, 29 Penn's treaty with the Indians, 31 Penn's new charter adopted, 36 Penn returns to England in summer of 1684, 37 Penn bidding colonists farewell--his departure, 38 Penn, restored to his rights, returns to America, 40 Penn, death of, 41 Pennsylvania, how named, 28 Pennsylvania divided into three counties, 37 Persecution of the Monmouth rebels, 47 Philadelphia, how named and laid out by Penn and Holme, 35 Phipps reduces Acadia, 314 Phipps in Massachusetts, 342 Pilgrims persecute Quakers, 24 Puritan superstition, 160 Quakers persecuted by Pilgrims, 24 Quaker, how the term came to be used, 25 Rhode Island charter surrendered, 114 Ryswick, treaty of, 325 Salem, 2 Salem witchcraft, 234 Salmon Falls attacked, 311 Schenectady attacked by French and Indians, 309 Sidney, Algernon, aids Penn in drawing up a code of laws for Pennsylvania, 29 Sloughter, Colonel Henry, commissioned governor of New York, 228 Sothel, Seth, governor of North Carolinia, 147 Sothel arrested, tried and convicted, 148 South Carolinia politics in 1672, 149 Stoll, Jost, the ensign who bore Leisler's letter to King William, 220 Stoughton, judge to try witches, 343 Superstition, the reign of, 328 Swedes and William Penn, 34 Tituba, Mr. Parris' slave, 66 Train-bands summoned, 107 Treat, Robert, governor of Connecticut, 115 Uplands (now Chester County), Penn meets assembly at, 34 Van Cortlandt's burnt offering, 135 Wadsworth and the Charter Oak, 110 Walcut, Mary, bitten by a witch, 277 _Welcome_, name of Penn's ship, 30 West Jersey, first popular assembly at Salem, 142 William and Mary deprive Penn of his rights as governor, 40 William and Mary's ascension to the throne of England hailed with joy throughout New England, 217 Williams, Abigail, niece of Mr. Parris, 68 Williams, Abigail, bewitched, 279 Winthrop's expedition fails, 314 Witchcraft, belief in general, 235 Witchcraft, evidence of, 266 Witchcraft, trials for, 331 Witchcraft, doctrine of, 380 Witch doctor, 236 Witches hung on Witches' Hill, 275 CHRONOLOGY. PERIOD VII.--AGE OF SUPERSTITION. A.D. 1680 TO A.D. 1700. 1680. CHARLESTON, S. C., founded by the removal of the Carteret Colony. 1681. PENNSYLVANIA granted to William Penn by Charles II.,--March 4. 1682. LA SALLE explored the Mississippi to its mouth; named Louisiana. DELAWARE (the three lower counties) granted to William Penn,--Aug. 24. PHILADELPHIA founded by William Penn. 1684. MASSACHUSETTS' CHARTER declared null and void by English Court,--June 18. 1685. ACCESSION OF JAMES II. to the throne of Great Britain,--Feb. 6. 1686. ARRIVAL OF SIR EDMUND ANDROS, Governor of all New England,--Dec. 20. 1687. CHARTER OF CONNECTICUT concealed in Charter Oak at Hartford,--Oct. 31. 1689. ACCESSION OF WILLIAM III. AND MARY II. to the throne of Great Britain,--Feb. 13. KING WILLIAM'S WAR, between Great Britain and France,--lasted eight years. 1690. BURNING OF SCHENECTADY, N. Y., by French and Indians,--Feb. 9. PORT ROYAL taken by the British under Phipps,--May. 1691. MASSACHUSETTS, Plymouth, Maine, and Nova Scotia united,--Gov. Phipps, Oct. 7. LEISLER AND MILBORNE hung,--May 16. 1692. PHIPPS' WITCHCRAFT COURT at Salem, Mass. (Twenty persons convicted of witchcraft and put to death.) 1694. DEATH OF MARY II., Queen of Great Britain,--Dec. 28. 1697. TREATY OF RYSWICK closed King William's War; no change in territory,--Oct. 30. 1699. CAPTAIN WILLIAM KIDD, the pirate, at Gardner's Bay, Long Island. [Transcriber's Note: Inconsistent use of hyphens has been retained as in the original: Goodwife/Good-wife, firebrands/fire-brands, roadside/road-side, firelight/fire-light, fireplace/fire-place, hubbub/hub-bub, seafaring/sea-faring. Other punctuation and spelling has been standardized.] 
26978	----	public domain works from the University of Michigan Digital Libraries.) SALEM WITCHCRAFT AND COTTON MATHER. A REPLY. BY CHARLES W. UPHAM, _Member of the Massachusetts Historical Society._ MORRISANIA, N. Y.: 1869. TO HENRY B. DAWSON, ESQ., PROPRIETOR AND EDITOR OF _THE HISTORICAL MAGAZINE_, THIS REPRINT FROM ITS PAGES IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY ITS AUTHOR. SALEM, MASS., December 10, 1869. Transcriber's Note: Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Superscript text is preceded by the ^ character. Variant spellings, including the inconsistent spelling of proper nouns, remain as printed. Spelling errors in quotations have been retained, despite the generally poor quality of the original typesetting. PREFATORY NOTE. The Editors of the _North American Review_ would, under the circumstances, I have no reason to doubt, have opened its columns to a reply to the article that has led to the preparation of the following statement. But its length has forbidden my asking such a favor. All interested in the department of American literature to which the HISTORICAL MAGAZINE belongs, must appreciate the ability with which it is conducted, and the laborious and indefatigable zeal of its Editor, in collecting and placing on its pages, beyond the reach of oblivion and loss, the scattered and perishing materials necessary to the elucidation of historical and biographical topics, whether relating to particular localities or the country at large; and it was as gratifying as unexpected to receive the proffer, without limitation, of the use of that publication for this occasion. The spirited discussion, by earnest scholars, of special questions, although occasionally assuming the aspect of controversy, will be not only tolerated but welcomed by liberal minds. Let champions arise, in all sections of the Republic, to defend their respective rightful claims to share in a common glorious inheritance and to inscribe their several records in our Annals. Feeling the deepest interest in the Historical, Antiquarian, and Genealogical Societies of Massachusetts, and yielding to none in keen sensibility to all that concerns the ancient honors of the Old Bay State and New England, generally, I rejoice to witness the spirit of a commemorative age kindling the public mind, every where, in the Middle, Western and Southern States. The courtesy extended to me is evidence that while, by a jealous scrutiny and, sometimes, perhaps, a sharp conflict, we are reciprocally imposing checks upon loose exaggerations and overweening pretensions, a comprehensive good feeling predominates over all; truth in its purity is getting eliminated; and characters and occurrences, in all parts of the country, brought under the clear light of justice. The aid I have received, in the following discussion, from the publications and depositories of historical associations and the contributions of individuals, like Mr. Goodell, Doctor Moore, and others, engaged in procuring from the mother country and preserving all original tracts and documents, whenever found, belonging to our Colonial period, demonstrate the importance of such efforts, whether of Societies or single persons. In this way, our history will stand on a solid foundation, and have the lineaments of complete and exact truth. Notwithstanding the distance from the place of printing, owing to the faithful and intelligent oversight of the superintendent of the press and the vigilant core of the compositors, but few errors, I trust, will be found, beyond what are merely literal, and every reader will unconsciously, or readily, correct for himself. C. W. U. SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS. TABLE OF CONTENTS. _Page._ INTRODUCTION. 1 I. THE CONNECTION OF THE MATHERS WITH THE SUPERSTITIONS OF THEIR TIME. 1 II. THE GOODWIN CHILDREN. SOME GENERAL REMARKS UPON THE CRITICISMS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. 4 III. COTTON MATHER AND THE GOODWIN CHILDREN. JOHN BAILY. JOHN HALE. GOODWIN'S CERTIFICATES. MATHER'S IDEA OF WITCHCRAFT AS A WAR WITH THE DEVIL. HIS USE OF PRAYER. CONNECTION BETWEEN THE CASE OF THE GOODWIN CHILDREN AND SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 6 IV. THE RELATION OF THE MATHERS TO THE ADMINISTRATION OF MASSACHUSETTS, IN 1692. THE NEW CHARTER. THE GOVERNMENT UNDER IT ARRANGED BY THEM. ARRIVAL OF SIR WILLIAM PHIPS. 12 V. THE SPECIAL COURT OF OYER AND TERMINER. HOW IT WAS ESTABLISHED. WHO RESPONSIBLE FOR IT. THE GOVERNMENT OF THE PROVINCE CONCENTRATED IN ITS CHIEF-JUSTICE. 15 VI. COTTON MATHER'S CONNECTION WITH THE COURT. SPECTRAL EVIDENCE. LETTER TO JOHN RICHARDS. ADVICE OF THE MINISTERS. 19 VII. ADVICE OF THE MINISTERS, FURTHER CONSIDERED. COTTON MATHER'S PLAN FOR DEALING WITH SPECTRAL TESTIMONY. 23 VIII. COTTON MATHER AND SPECTRAL EVIDENCE. 30 IX. COTTON MATHER AND THE PRELIMINARY EXAMINATIONS. JOHN PROCTOR. GEORGE BURROUGHS. 32 X. COTTON MATHER AND THE WITCHCRAFT TRIALS. THE EXECUTIONS. 38 XI. LETTER TO STEPHEN SEWALL. "WONDERS OF THE INVISIBLE WORLD." ITS ORIGIN AND DESIGN. COTTON MATHER'S ACCOUNT OF THE TRIALS. 44 XII. "WONDERS OF THE INVISIBLE WORLD," CONTINUED. PASSAGES FROM IT. "CASES OF CONSCIENCE." INCREASE MATHER. 50 XIII. THE COURT OF OYER AND TERMINER BROUGHT TO A SUDDEN END. SIR WILLIAM PHIPS. 54 XIV. COTTON MATHER'S WRITINGS SUBSEQUENT TO THE WITCHCRAFT PROSECUTIONS. 57 XV. HISTORY OF OPINION AS TO COTTON MATHER'S CONNECTION WITH SALEM WITCHCRAFT. THOMAS BRATTLE. THE PEOPLE OF SALEM VILLAGE. JOHN HALE. JOHN HIGGINSON. MICHAEL WIGGLESWORTH. 61 XVI. HISTORY OF OPINION AS TO COTTON MATHER, CONTINUED. FRANCIS HUTCHINSON. DANIEL NEAL. ISAAC WATTS. THOMAS HUTCHINSON. WILLIAM BENTLEY. JOHN ELIOT. JOSIAH QUINCY. 68 XVII. THE EFFECT UPON THE POWER OF THE MATHERS, IN THE PUBLIC AFFAIRS OF THE PROVINCE, OF THEIR CONNECTION WITH WITCHCRAFT. 70 XVIII. COTTON MATHER'S WRITINGS AND CHARACTER. 74 XIX. ROBERT CALEF'S WRITINGS AND CHARACTER. 77 XX. MISCELLANEOUS REMARKS. CONCLUSION. 84 SALEM WITCHCRAFT AND COTTON MATHER. INTRODUCTION. An article in _The North American Review_, for April, 1869, is mostly devoted to a notice of the work published by me, in 1867, entitled _Salem Witchcraft, with an account of Salem Village, and a history of opinions on witchcraft and kindred subjects_. If the article had contained criticisms, in the usual style, merely affecting the character of that work, in a literary point of view, no other duty would have devolved upon me, than carefully to consider and respectfully heed its suggestions. But it raises questions of an historical nature that seem to demand a response, either acknowledging the correctness of its statements or vindicating my own. The character of the Periodical in which it appears; the manner in which it was heralded by rumor, long before its publication; its circulation, since, in a separate pamphlet form; and the extent to which, in certain quarters, its assumptions have been endorsed, make a reply imperative. The subject to which it relates is of acknowledged interest and importance. The Witchcraft Delusion of 1692 has justly arrested a wider notice, and probably always will, than any other occurrence in the early colonial history of this country. It presents phenomena in the realm of our spiritual nature, belonging to that higher department of physiology, known as Psychology, of the greatest moment; and illustrates the operations of the imagination upon the passions and faculties in immediate connection with it, and the perils to which the soul and society are thereby exposed, in a manner more striking, startling and instructive than is elsewhere to be found. For all reasons, truth and justice require of those who venture to explore and portray it, the utmost efforts to elucidate its passages and delineate correctly its actors. With these views I hail with satisfaction the criticisms that may be offered upon my book, without regard to their personal character or bearing, as continuing and heightening the interest felt in the subject; and avail myself of the opportunity, tendered to me without solicitation and in a most liberal spirit, by the proprietor of this Magazine, to meet the obligations which historical truth and justice impose. The principle charge, and it is repeated in innumerable forms through the sixty odd pages of the article in the _North American_, is that I have misrepresented the part borne by Cotton Mather in the proceeding connected with the Witchcraft Delusion and prosecutions, in 1692. Various other complaints are made of inaccuracy and unfairness, particularly in reference to the position of Increase Mather and the course of the Boston Ministers of that period, generally. Although the discussion, to which I now ask attention, may appear, at first view, to relate to questions merely personal, it will be found, I think, to lead to an exploration of the literature and prevalent sentiments, relating to religious and philosophical subjects, of that period; and, also, of an instructive passage in the public history of the Province of Massachusetts Bay. I now propose to present the subject more fully than was required, or would have been appropriate, in my work on Witchcraft. I. THE CONNECTION OF THE MATHERS WITH THE SUPERSTITIONS OF THEIR TIME. In the first place, I venture to say that it can admit of no doubt, that Increase Mather and his son, Cotton Mather, did more than any other persons to aggravate the tendency of that age to the result reached in the Witchcraft Delusion of 1692. The latter, in the beginning of the Sixth Book of the _Magnalia Christi Americana_, refers to an attempt made, about the year 1658, "among some divines of no little figure throughout England and Ireland, for the faithful registering of remarkable providences. But, alas," he says, "it came to nothing that was remarkable. The like holy design," he continues, "was, by the Reverend Increase Mather, proposed among the divines of New England, in the year 1681, at a general meeting of them; who thereupon desired him to begin and publish an Essay; which he did in a little while; but there-withal declared that he did it only as a specimen of a larger volume, in hopes that this work being set on foot, posterity would go on with it." Cotton Mather did go on with it, immediately upon his entrance to the ministry; and by their preaching, publications, correspondence at home and abroad, and the influence of their learning, talents, industry, and zeal in the work, these two men promoted the prevalence of a passion for the marvelous and monstrous, and what was deemed preternatural, infernal, and diabolical, throughout the whole mass of the people, in England as well as America. The public mind became infatuated and, drugged with credulity and superstition, was prepared to receive every impulse of blind fanaticism. The stories, thus collected and put everywhere in circulation, were of a nature to terrify the imagination, fill the mind with horrible apprehensions, degrade the general intelligence and taste, and dethrone the reason. They darken and dishonor the literature of that period. A rehash of them can be found in the Sixth Book of the _Magnalia_. The effects of such publications were naturally developed in widespread delusions and universal credulity. They penetrated the whole body of society, and reached all the inhabitants and families of the land, in the towns and remotest settlements. In this way, the Mathers, particularly the younger, made themselves responsible for the diseased and bewildered state of the public mind, in reference in supernatural and diabolical agencies, which came to a head in the Witchcraft Delusion. I do not say that they were culpable. Undoubtedly they thought they were doing God service. But the influence they exercised, in this direction, remains none the less an historical fact. Increase Mather applied himself, without delay, to the prosecution of the design he had proposed, by writing to persons in all parts of the country, particularly clergymen, to procure, for publication, as many marvelous stories as could be raked up. In the eighth volume of the Fourth Series of the _Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society_, consisting of _The Mather Papers_, the responses of several of his correspondents may be seen. [_Pp. 285, 360, 361, 367, 466, 475, 555, 612._] He pursued this business with an industrious and pertinacious zeal, which nothing could slacken. After the rest of the world had been shocked out of such mischievous nonsense, by the horrid results at Salem, on the fifth of March, 1694, as President of Harvard College, he issued a Circular to "The Reverend Ministers of the Gospel, in the several Churches in New England," signed by himself and seven others, members of the Corporation of that institution, urging it, as the special duty of Ministers of the Gospel, to obtain and preserve knowledge of notable occurrences, described under the general head of "_Remarkables_," and classified as follows: "The things to be esteemed memorable are, especially, all unusual accidents, in the heaven, or earth, or water; all wonderful deliverances of the distressed; mercies to the godly; judgments to the wicked; and more glorious fulfilments of either the promises or the threatenings, in the Scriptures of truth; with apparitions, possessions, inchantments, and all extraordinary things wherein the existence and agency of the invisible world is more sensibly demonstrated."--_Magnalia Christi Americana._ Edit. London, 1702. Book VI., p. 1. All communications, in answer to this missive were to be addressed to the "President and Fellows" of Harvard College. The first article is as follows: "To observe and record the more illustrious discoveries of the Divine Providence, in the government of the world, is a design so holy, so useful, so justly approved, that the too general neglect of it in the Churches of God, is as justly to be lamented." It is important to consider this language in connection with that used by Cotton Mather, in opening the Sixth Book of the _Magnalia_: "To regard the illustrious displays of that Providence, wherewith our Lord Christ governs the world, is a work than which there is none more needful or useful for a Christian; to record them is a work than which none more proper for a Minister; and perhaps the great Governor of the world will ordinarily do the most notable things for those who are most ready to take a wise notice of what he does. Unaccountable, therefore, and inexcusable, is the sleepiness, even upon the most of good men throughout the world, which indisposes them to observe and, much more, to preserve, the remarkable dispensations of Divine Providence, towards themselves or others. Nevertheless there have been raised up, now and then, those persons, who have rendered themselves worthy of everlasting remembrance, by their wakeful zeal to have the memorable providences of God remembered through all generations." These passages from the Mathers, father and son, embrace, in their bearings, a period, eleven years before and two years after the Delusion of 1692. They show that the Clergy, generally, were indifferent to the subject, and required to be aroused from "neglect" and "sleepiness," touching the duty of flooding the public mind with stories of "wonders" and "remarkables;" and that the agency of the Mathers, in giving currency, by means of their ministry and influence, to such ideas, was peculiar and pre-eminent. However innocent and excusable their motives may have been, the laws of cause and effect remained unbroken; and the result of their actions are, with truth and justice, attributable to them--not necessarily, I repeat, to impeach their honesty and integrity, but their wisdom, taste, judgment, and common sense. Human responsibility is not to be set aside, nor avoided, merely and wholly by good intent. It involves a solemn and fearful obligation to the use of reason, caution, cool deliberation, circumspection, and a most careful calculation of consequences. Error, if innocent and honest, is not punishable by divine, and ought not to be by human, law. It is covered by the mercy of God, and must not be pursued by the animosity of men. But it is, nevertheless, a thing to be dreaded and to be guarded against, with the utmost vigilance. Throughout the melancholy annals of the Church and the world, it has been the fountain of innumerable woes, spreading baleful influences through society, paralysing the energies of reason and conscience, dimming, all but extinguishing, the light of religion, convulsing nations, and desolating the earth. It is the duty of historians to trace it to its source; and, by depicting faithfully the causes that have led to it, prevent its recurrence. With these views, I feel bound, distinctly, to state that the impression given to the popular sentiments of the period, to which I am referring, by certain leading minds, led to, was the efficient cause of, and, in this sense, may be said to have originated, the awful superstitions long prevalent in the old world and the new, and reaching a final catastrophe in 1692; and among these leading minds, aggravating and intensifying, by their writings, this most baleful form of the superstition of the age, Increase and Cotton Mather stand most conspicuous. This opinion was entertained, at the time, by impartial observers. Francis Hutchinson, D.D., "Chaplain in ordinary to his Majesty, and Minister of St. James's Parish, in St. Edmund's Bury," in the life-time of both the Mathers, published, in London, an _Historical Essay concerning Witchcraft_, dedicated to the "Lord Chief-justice of England, the Lord Chief-justice of Common Pleas, and the Lord Chief Baron of Exchequer." In a Chapter on _The Witchcraft in Salem, Boston, and Andover, in New England_, he attributes it, as will be seen in the course of this article, to the influence of the writings of the Mathers. In the Preface to the London edition of Cotton Mather's _Memorable Providences_, written by Richard Baxter, in 1690, he ascribes this same prominence to the works of the Mathers. While expressing the great value he attached to writings about Witchcraft, and the importance, in his view, of that department of literature which relates stories about diabolical agency, possessions, apparitions, and the like, he says, "Mr. Increase Mather hath already published many such histories of things done in New England; and this great instance published by his son"--that is, the account of the Goodwin children--"cometh with such full convincing evidence, that he must be a very obdurate Sadducee that will not believe it. And his two Sermons, adjoined, are excellently fitted to the subject and this blinded generation, and to the use of us all, that are not past our warfare with Devils." One of the Sermons, which Baxter commends, is on _The Power and Malice of Devils_, and opens with the declaration, that "there is a combination of Devils, which our air is filled withal:" the other is on _Witchcraft_. Both are replete with the most exciting and vehement enforcements of the superstitions of that age, relating to the Devil and his confederates. My first position, then, in contravention of that taken by the Reviewer in the _North American_, is that, by stimulating the Clergy over the whole country, to collect and circulate all sorts of marvelous and supposed preternatural occurrences, by giving this direction to the preaching and literature of the times, these two active, zealous, learned, and able Divines, Increase and Cotton Mather, considering the influence they naturally were able to exercise, are, particularly the latter, justly chargeable with, and may be said to have brought about, the extraordinary outbreaks of credulous fanaticism, exhibited in the cases of the Goodwin family and of "the afflicted children," at Salem Village. Robert Calef, writing to the Ministers of the country, March 18, 1694, says: "I having had, not only occasion, but renewed provocation, to take a view of the mysterious doctrines, which have of late been so much contested among us, could not meet with any that had spoken more, or more plainly, the sense of those doctrines" [_relating to the Witchcraft_] "than the Reverend Mr. Cotton Mather, but how clearly and consistent, either with himself or the truth, I meddle not now to say, but cannot but suppose his strenuous and zealous asserting his opinions has been one cause of the dismal convulsions, we have here lately fallen into."--_More Wonders of the Invisible World_, by Robert Calef, Merchant of Boston, in New England. Edit. London, 1700, p. 33. The papers that remain, connected with the Witchcraft Examinations and Trials, at Salem, show the extent to which currency had been given, in the popular mind, to such marvelous and prodigious things as the Mathers had been so long endeavoring to collect and circulate; particularly in the interior, rural settlements. The solemn solitudes of the woods were filled with ghosts, hobgoblins, spectres, evil spirits, and the infernal Prince of them all. Every pathway was infested with their flitting shapes and footprints; and around every hearth-stone, shuddering circles, drawing closer together as the darkness of night thickened and their imaginations became more awed and frightened, listened to tales of diabolical operations: the same effects, in somewhat different forms, pervaded the seaboard settlements and larger towns. Besides such frightful fancies, other most unhappy influences flowed from the prevalence of the style of literature which the Mathers brought into vogue. Suspicions and accusations of witchcraft were everywhere prevalent; any unusual calamity or misadventure; every instance of real or affected singularity of deportment or behavior--and, in that condition of perverted and distempered public opinion, there would be many such--was attributed to the Devil. Every sufferer who had yielded his mind to what was taught in pulpits or publications, lost sight of the Divine Hand, and could see nothing but devils in his afflictions. Poor John Goodwin, whose trials we are presently to consider, while his children were acting, as the phrase--originating in those days, and still lingering in the lower forms of vulgar speech--has it, "like all possessed," broke forth thus: "I thought of what David said. _2 Samuel_, xxiv., 14. If he feared so to fall into the hands of men, oh! then to think of the horrors of our condition, to be in the hands of Devils and Witches. Thus, our doleful condition moved us to call to our friends to have pity on us, for God's hand hath touched us. I was ready to say that no one's affliction was like mine. That my little house, that should be a little Bethel for God to dwell in, should be made a den for Devils; that those little Bodies, that should be Temples for the Holy Ghost to dwell in, should be thus harrassed and abused by the Devil and his cursed brood."--_Late Memorable Providences, relating to Witchcraft and Possessions._ By Cotton Mather. Edit. London, 1691. No wonder that the country was full of the terrors and horrors of diabolical imaginations, when the Devil was kept before the minds of men, by what they constantly read and heard, from their religious teachers! In the Sermons of that day, he was the all-absorbing topic of learning and eloquence. In some of Cotton Mather's, the name, Devil, or its synonyms, is mentioned ten times as often as that of the benign and blessed God. No wonder that alleged witchcrafts were numerous! Drake, in his _History of Boston_, says there were many cases there, about the year 1688. Only one of them seems to have attracted the kind of notice requisite to preserve it from oblivion--that of the four children of John Goodwin, the eldest, thirteen years of age. The relation of this case, in my book [_Salem Witchcraft_, i., 454-460] was wholly drawn from the _Memorable Providences_ and the _Magnalia_. II. THE GOODWIN CHILDREN. SOME GENERAL REMARKS UPON THE CRITICISMS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. The Reviewer charges me with having wronged Cotton Mather, by representing that he "got up" the whole affair of the Goodwin children. He places the expression within quotation marks, and repeats it, over and over again. In the passage to which he refers--p. 366 of the second volume of my book--I say of Cotton Mather, that he "repeatedly endeavored to get up cases of the kind in Boston. There is some ground for suspicion that he was instrumental in originating the fanaticism in Salem." I am not aware that the expression was used, except in this passage. But, wherever used, it was designed to convey the meaning given to it, by both of our great lexicographers. Worcester defines "_to get up_, 'to prepare, to make ready--to get up an entertainment;' 'to print and publish, as a book.'" Webster defines it, "to prepare for coming before the public; to bring forward." This is precisely what Mather did, in the case of the Goodwin children, and what Calef put a stop to his doing in the case of Margaret Rule. In 1831, I published a volume entitled _Lectures on Witchcraft, comprising a history of the Delusion, in Salem, in 1692_. In 1867, I published _Salem Witchcraft, and an account of Salem Village_; and, in the Preface, stated that "the former was prepared under circumstances which prevented a thorough investigation of the subject. Leisure and freedom from professional duties have now enabled me to prosecute the researches necessary to do justice to it. The _Lectures on Witchcraft_ have long been out of print. Although frequently importuned to prepare a new edition, I was unwilling to issue, again, what I had discovered to be an inadequate presentation of the subject." In the face of this disclaimer of the authority of the original work, the Reviewer says: "In this discussion, we shall treat Mr. Upham's _Lectures_ and History in the same connection, as the latter is an expansion and defence of the views presented in the former." I ask every person of candor and fairness, to consider whether it is just to treat authors in this way? It is but poor encouragement to them to labor to improve their works, for the first critical journal in the country to bring discredit upon their efforts, by still laying to their charge what they have themselves remedied or withdrawn. Yet it is avowedly done in the article which compels me to this vindication. The _Lectures_, for instance, printed in 1831, contained the following sentence, referring to Cotton Mather's agency, in the Goodwin case, in Boston. "An instance of witchcraft was brought about, in that place, by his management." So it appeared in a reprint of that volume, in 1832. In my recent publication, while transferring a long paragraph from the original work, _I carefully omitted_, from the body of it, the above sentence, fearing that it might lead to misapprehension. For, although I hold that the Mathers are pre-eminently answerable for the witchcraft proceedings in their day, and may be said, justly, to have caused them, of course I did not mean that, by personal instigation on the spot, they started every occurrence that ultimately was made to assume such a character. The Reviewer, with the fact well known to him, that I had suppressed and discarded this clause, flings it against me, repeatedly. He further quotes a portion of the paragraph, in the _Lectures_, in which it occurs, omitting, _without indicating the omission_, certain clauses that would have explained my meaning, _taking care, however, to include the suppressed passage_; and finishes the misrepresentation, by the following declaration, referring to the paragraph in the _Lectures_: "The same statements, in almost the same words, he reproduces in his History." This he says, knowing that the particular statement to which he was then taking exception, was not reproduced in my History. It may be as well here, at this point, as elsewhere, once for all, to dispose of a large portion of the matter contained in the long article in the _North American Review_, now under consideration. In preparing any work, particularly in the department of history, it is to be presumed that the explorations of the writer extend far beyond what he may conclude to put into his book. He will find much that is of no account whatever; that would load down his narrative, swell it to inadmissible dimensions, and shed no additional light. Collateral and incidental questions cannot be pursued in details. A new law, however, is now given out, that must be followed, hereafter, by all writers--that is, to give not a catalogue merely, but an account of the contents, of every book and tract they have read. It is thus announced by our Reviewer: "We assume Mr. Upham has not seen this tract, as he neither mentioned it nor made use of its material." The document here spoken of was designed to give Increase Mather's ideas on the subject of witchcraft trials, written near the close of those in Salem, in 1692. As I had no peculiar interest in determining what his views were--as a careful study of the tract, particularly taken in connection with its _Postscript_, fails to bring any reader to a clear conception of them; and as its whole matter was altogether immaterial to my subject--I did not think it worth while to encumber my pages with it. So in respect to many other points, in treating which extended discussions might be demanded. If I had been governed by such notions as the Reviewer seems to entertain, my book, which he complains of as too long, would have been lengthened to the dimensions of a cyclopædia of theology, biography, and philosophy. For keeping to my subject, and not diverting attention to writings of no inherent value, in any point of view, and which would contribute nothing to the elucidation of my topics, I am charged by this Reviewer, in the baldest terms, with ignorance, on almost every one of his sixty odd pages, and, often, several times on the same page. All that I say of Cotton Mather, mostly drawn from his own words, does not cover a dozen pages. Exception is taken to some unfavorable judgments, cursorily expressed. This is fair and legitimate, and would justify my being called on to substantiate them. But to assume, and proclaim, that I had not read nor seen tracts or volumes that would come under consideration in such a discussion, is as rash as it is offensive; and, besides, constitutes a charge against which no person of any self respect or common sense can be expected to defend himself. I gave the opinion of Cotton Mather's agency in the Witchcraft of 1692, to which my judgment had been led--whether with sufficient grounds or not will be seen, as I proceed--but did not branch off from my proper subject, into a detail of the sources from which that opinion was derived. If I had done so, in connection with allusions to Mather, upon the same principle it would have been necessary to do it, whenever an opinion was expressed of others, such as Roger Williams, or Hugh Peters, or Richard Baxter. It would destroy the interest, and stretch interminably the dimensions, of any book, to break its narrative, abandon its proper subject, and stray aside into such endless collateral matter. But it must be done, if the article in the _North American Review_, is to be regarded as an authoritative announcement of a canon of criticism. Lecturers and public speakers, or writers of any kind, must be on their guard. If they should chance, for instance, to speak of Cotton Mather as a pedant, they will have the reviewers after them, belaboring them with the charge of "a great lack of research," in not having "pored over" the "prodigious" manuscript of his unpublished work, in the Library of the Massachusetts Historical Society, the whole of his three hundred and eighty-two printed works, and the huge mass of _Mather Papers_, in the Library of the American Antiquarian Society; and with never having "read" the _Memorable Providences_, or "seen" the _Wonders of the Invisible World_, or "heard" of the _Magnalia Christi Americana_. III. COTTON MATHER AND THE GOODWIN CHILDREN. JOHN BAILY. JOHN HALE. GOODWIN'S CERTIFICATES. MATHER'S IDEA OF WITCHCRAFT AS A WAR WITH THE DEVIL. HIS USE OF PRAYER. CONNECTION BETWEEN THE CASE OF THE GOODWIN CHILDREN AND SALEM WITCHCRAFT. The Reviewer complains of my manner of treating Cotton Mather's connection with the affair of the Goodwin children. The facts in the case are, that the family, to which they belonged, lived in the South part of Boston. The father, a mason by occupation, was, as Mather informs us, "a sober and pious man." As his church relations were with the congregation in Charlestown, of which Charles Morton was the Pastor, he probably had no particular acquaintance with the Boston Ministers. From a statement made by Mr. Goodwin, some years subsequently, it seems that after one of his children had, for "about a quarter of a year, been laboring under sad circumstances from the invisible world," he called upon "the four Ministers of Boston, together with his own Pastor, to keep a day of prayer at his house. If so deliverance might be obtained." He says that Cotton Mather, with whom he had no previous acquaintance, was the last of the Ministers that "he spoke to on that occasion." Mr. Mather did not attend the meeting, but visited the house in the morning of the day, before the other Ministers came; spent a half hour there; and prayed with the family. About three months after, the Ministers held another prayer-meeting there, Mr. Mather being present. He further stated that Mr. Mather never, in any way, suggested his prosecuting the old Irish woman for bewitching his children, nor gave him any advice in reference to the legal proceedings against her; but that "the motion of going to the authority was made to him by a Minister of a neighboring town, now departed." The Reviewer, in a note to the last item, given above, of Goodwin's statement, says: "Probably Mr. John Baily." Unless he has some particular evidence, tending to fix this advice upon Baily, the conjecture is objectionable. The name of such a man as Baily appears to have been, ought not, unnecessarily, to be connected with the transaction. It is true that, after the family had become relieved of its "sad circumstances from the invisible world," Mr. Baily took one of the children to his house, in Watertown; but that is no indication of his having given such advice. The only facts known of him, in connection with Witchcraft prosecutions, look in the opposite direction. When John Proctor, in his extremity of danger, sought for help, Mr. Baily was one of the Ministers from whom alone he had any ground to indulge a hope for sympathy; and his name is among the fourteen who signed the paper approving of Increase Mather's _Cases of Conscience_. The list comprises all the Ministers known as having shown any friendly feelings towards persons charged with Witchcraft or who had suffered from the prosecutions, such as Hubbard, Allen, Willard, Capen and Wise; but not one who had taken an active part in hurrying on the proceedings of 1692. If any surmise is justifiable, or worth while, as to the author of the advice to Goodwin--and perhaps it is due to the memory of Baily, whose name has been thus introduced--I should be inclined to suggest that it was John Hale, of Beverly, who, like Baily, was deceased at the date of Goodwin's certificate. He was a Charlestown man, originally of the same religious Society with Goodwin, and had kept up acquaintance with his former townsmen. His course at Salem Village, a few years afterwards, shows that he would have been likely to give such advice; and we may impute it to him without any wrong to his character or reputation. His noble conduct in daring, in the very hour of the extremest fury of the storm, when, as just before the break of day, the darkness was deepest, to denounce the proceedings as wrong; and in doing all that he could to repair that wrong, by writing a book condemning the very things in which he had himself been a chief actor, gives to his name a glory that cannot be dimmed by supposing that, in the period of his former delusion, he was the unfortunate adviser of Goodwin. When Calef's book reached this country, in 1700, a Committee of seven was raised, at a meeting of the members of the Parish of which the Mathers were Ministers, to protect them against its effects. John Goodwin was a member of it, and contributed the Certificate from which extracts have just been made. It was so worded as to give the impression that Cotton Mather did not take a leading part in the case of Goodwin's children, in 1688. It states, as has been seen, that he "was the last of the Ministers" asked to attend the prayer-meeting; but lets out the fact that he was the first to present himself, going to the house and praying with the family before the rest arrived. Goodwin further states, as follows: "The Ministers would, now and then, come to visit my distressed family, and pray with and for them, among which Mr. Cotton Mather would, now and then, come." The whole document is so framed as to present Mather as playing a secondary part. In an account, however, of the affair, written by this same John Goodwin, and printed by Mather, in London, ten years before, in _The Memorable Providences relating to Witchcraft and Possessions_, a somewhat different position is assigned to Mather. After saying "the Ministers did often visit us," he mentions "Mr. Mather particularly." "He took much pains in this great service, to pull this child and her brother and sister, out of the hands of the Devil. Let us now admire and adore that fountain, the Lord Jesus Christ, from whence those streams come. The Lord himself will requite his labor of love." In 1690, Mather was willing to have Goodwin place him in the foreground of the picture, representing him as pulling the children out of the hand of the Devil. In 1700, it was expedient to withdraw him into the background: and Goodwin, accordingly, provided the Committee, of which he was a member, with a Certificate of a somewhat different color and tenor. The execution of the woman, Glover, on the charge of having bewitched these Goodwin children, is one of the most atrocious passages of our history. Hutchinson[1] says she was one of the "wild Irish," and "appeared to be disordered in her senses." She was a Roman Catholic, unable to speak the English language, and evidently knew not what to make of the proceedings against her. In her dying hour, she was understood by the interpreter to say, that taking away her life would not have any effect in diminishing the sufferings of the children. The remark, showing more sense than any of the rest of them had, was made to bear against the poor old creature, as a diabolical imprecation. Between the time of her condemnation and that of her execution, Cotton Mather took the eldest Goodwin child into his family, and kept her there all winter. He has told the story of her extraordinary doings, in a style of blind and absurd credulity that cannot be surpassed. "Ere long," says he, "I thought it convenient for me to entertain my congregation with a Sermon on the memorable providence, wherein these children had been concerned, (afterwards published)." In this connection, it may be remarked that had it not been for the interference of the Ministers, it is quite likely that "the sad circumstances from the invisible world," in the Goodwin family, would never have been heard of, beyond the immediate neighbourhood. It is quite certain that similar "circumstances," in Mr. Parris's family, in 1692, owed their general publicity and their awful consequences, to the meetings of Ministers called by him. If the girls, in either case, had been let alone, they would soon have been weary of what one of them called their "sport;" and the whole thing would have been swallowed, with countless stories of haunted houses and second sight, in deep oblivion. In considering Cotton Mather's connection with the case of the Goodwin children, and that of the accusing girls, at Salem Village, justice to him requires that the statements, in my book, of the then prevalent notions, of the power and pending formidableness of the Kingdom of Darkness, should be borne in mind. It was believed by Divines generally, and by people at large, that here, in the American wilderness, a mighty onslaught upon the Christian settlements was soon to be made, by the Devil and his infernal hosts; and that, on this spot, the final battle between Satan and the Church, was shortly to come off. This belief had taken full possession of Mather's mind, and fired his imagination. In comparison with the approaching contest, all other wars, even that for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre, paled their light. It was the great crusade, in which hostile powers, Moslem, Papal, and Pagan, of every kind, on earth and from Hell, were to go down; and he aspired to be its St. Bernard. It was because he entertained these ideas, that he was on the watch to hear, and prompt and glad to meet, the first advances of the diabolical legions. This explains his eagerness to take hold of every occurrence that indicated the coming of the Arch Enemy. And it must further be borne in mind that, up to the time of the case of the Goodwin children, he had entertained the idea that the Devil was to be met and subdued by Prayer. That, and that only, was the weapon with which he girded himself; and with that he hoped and believed to conquer. For this reason, he did not advise Goodwin to go to the law. For this reason, he labored in the distressed household in exercises of prayer, and took the eldest child into his own family, so as to bring the battery of prayer, with a continuous bombardment, upon the Devil by whom she was possessed. For this reason, he persisted in praying in the cell of the old Irish woman, much against her will, for she was a stubborn Catholic. Of course, he could not pray _with_ her, for he had no doubt she was a confederate of the Devil; and she had no disposition to join in prayer with one whom, as a heretic, she regarded in no better light; but still he would pray, for which he apologized, when referring to the matter, afterward. Cotton Mather was always a man of prayer. For this, he deserves to be honored. Prayer, when offered in the spirit, and in accordance with the example, of the Saviour--"not my will but thine be done," "Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask him--" is the noblest exercise and attitude of the soul. It lifts it to the highest level to which our faculties can rise. It "opens heaven; lets down a stream Of glory on the consecrated hour Of man, in audience with the Deity." It was the misfortune of Cotton Mather, that an original infirmity of judgment, which all the influences of his life and peculiarities of his mental character and habits tended to exaggerate, led him to pervert the use and operation of prayer, until it became a mere implement, or device, to compass some personal end; to carry a point in which he was interested, whether relating to private and domestic affairs, or to movements in academical, political, or ecclesiastical spheres. While according to him entire sincerity in his devotional exercises, and, I trust, truly revering the character and nature of such expressions of devout sensibility and aspirations to divine communion, it is quite apparent that they were practiced by him, in modes and to an extent that cannot be commended, leading to much self-delusion and to extravagances near akin to distraction of judgment, and a disordered mental and moral frame. He would abstain from food--on one occasion, it is said, for three days together--and spend the time, as he expresses it "in knocking at the door of heaven." Leaving his bed at the dead hours of the night, and retiring to his study, he would cast himself on the floor, and "wrestle with the Lord." He kept, usually, one day of each week in such fasting, sometimes two. In his vigils, very protracted, he would, in this prostrate position, be bathed in tears. By such exhausting processes, continued through days and nights, without food or rest, his nature failed; he grew faint; physical weakness laid him open to delusions of the imagination; and his nervous system became deranged. Sometimes, heaven seemed to approach him, and he was hardly able to bear the ecstasies of divine love; at other times, his soul would be tossed in the opposite direction: and often, the two states would follow each other in the same exercise, as described by him in his Diary:[2]--"Was ever man more tempted than the miserable Mather? Should I tell in how many forms the Devil has assaulted me, and with what subtlety and energy his assaults have been carried on, it would strike my friends with horror. Sometimes, temptations to vice, to blasphemy, and atheism, and the abandonment of all religion as a mere delusion, and sometimes to self-destruction itself. These, even these, do follow thee, O miserable Mather, with astonishing fury. But I fall down into the dust, on my study floor, with tears, before the Lord, and then they quickly vanish, and it is fair weather again. Lord what wilt thou do with me?" His prayers and vigils, which often led to such high wrought and intense experiences, were, not infrequently, brought down to the level of ordinary sublunary affairs. In his Diary, he says, on one occasion: "I set apart the day for fasting with prayer, and the special intention of the day was to obtain deliverance and protection from my enemies. I mentioned their names unto the Lord, who has promised to be my shield." The enemies, here referred to, were political opponents--Governor Dudley and the supporters of his administration. At another time, he fixed his heart upon some books offered for sale. Not having the means to procure them in the ordinary way, he resorted to prayer: "I could not forbear mentioning my wishes in my prayers, before the Lord, that, in case it might be of service to his interests, he would enable me, in his good Providence, to purchase the treasure now before me. But I left the matter before him, with the profoundest resignation." The following entry is of a similar character: "This evening, I met with an experience, which it may not be unprofitable for me to remember. I had been, for about a fortnight, vexed with an extraordinary heart-burn; and none of all the common medicines would remove it, though for the present some of them would a little relieve it. At last, it grew so much upon me, that I was ready to faint under it. But, under my fainting pain, this reflection came into my mind. There was _this_ among the sufferings and complaints of my Lord Jesus Christ. My heart was like wax melted in the middle of my bowels. Hereupon, I begged of the Lord, that, for the sake of the heart-burn undergone by my Saviour, I might be delivered from the other and lesser heart-burn wherewith I was now incommoded. Immediately it was darted into my mind, that I had Sir Philip Paris's plaster in my house, which was good for inflammations; and laying the plaster on, I was cured of my malady." These passages indicate a use of prayer, which, to the extent Mather carried it, would hardly be practised or approved by enlightened Christians of this or any age; although our Reviewer fully endorses it. In reference to Mather's belief in the power of prayer, he expresses himself with a bald simplicity, never equalled even by that Divine. After stating that the Almighty Sovereign was his Father, and had promised to hear and answer his petitions, he goes on to say: "He had often tested this promise, and had found it faithful and sure." One would think, in hearing such a phraseology, he was listening to an agent, vending a patent medicine as an infallible cure, or trying to bring into use a labor-saving machine. The Reviewer calls me to account for representing "the Goodwin affair" as having had "a very important relation to the Salem troubles," and attempts to controvert that position. On this point, Francis Hutchinson, before referred to, gives his views, very decidedly, in the following passages: [_Pp. 95, 96, 101._] "Mr. Cotton Mather, no longer since than 1690, published the case of one Goodwin's children. * * * The book was sent hither to be printed amongst us, and Mr. Baxter recommended it to our people by a Preface, wherein he says: 'That man must be a very obdurate Sadducee that will not believe it.' The year after, Mr. Baxter, perhaps encouraged by Mr. Mather's book, published his own _Certainty of the World of Spirits_, with another testimony, 'That Mr. Mather's book would Silence any incredulity that pretended to be rational.' And Mr. Mather dispersed Mr. Baxter's book in New England, with the character of it, as a book that was ungainsayable." Speaking of Mather's book, Doctor Hutchinson proceeds: "The judgment I made of it was, that the poor old woman, being an Irish Papist, and not ready in the signification of English words, had entangled herself by a superstitious belief, and doubtful answers about Saints and Charms; and seeing what advantages Mr. Mather made of it, I was afraid I saw part of the reasons that carried the cause against her. And first it is manifest that Mr. Mather is magnified as having great power over evil spirits. A young man in his family is represented so holy, that the place of his devotions was a certain cure of the young virgin's fits. Then his grandfather's and father's books have gained a testimony, that, upon occasion, may be _improved_ one knows not how far. For amongst the many experiments that were made, Mr. Mather would bring to this young maid, the Bible, the _Assembly's Catechism_, his grandfather Cotton's _Milk for Babes_, his father's _Remarkable Providences_, and a book to prove that there were Witches; and when any of these were offered for her to read in, she would be struck dead, and fall into convulsions. 'These good books,' he says, 'were mortal to her'; and lest the world should be so dull as not to take him right, he adds, 'I hope I have not spoiled the credit of the books, by telling how much the Devil hated them.'" This language, published by Doctor Hutchinson, in England, during the life-time of the Mathers, shows how strong was the opinion, at that time, that the writings of those two Divines were designed and used to promote the prevalence of the Witchcraft superstition, and especially that such was the effect, as well as the purpose, of Cotton Mather's publication of the case of the Goodwin children, put into such circulation, as it was, by him and Baxter, in both Old and New England. In the same connection, Francis Hutchinson says: "Observe the time of the publication of that book, and of Mr. Baxter's. Mr. Mather's came out in 1690, and Mr. Baxter's the year after; and Mr. Mather's father's _Remarkable Providences_ had been out before that; and, in the year 1692, the frights and fits of the afflicted, and the imprisonment and execution of Witches in New England, made as sad a calamity as a plague or a war. I know that Mr. Mather, in his late Folio, imputes it to the Indian Pawaws sending their spirits amongst them; but I attribute it to Mr. Baxter's book, and his, and his father's, and the false principles, and frightful stories, that filled the people's minds with great fears and dangerous notions." Our own Hutchinson, in his _History of Massachusetts_, [_II., 25-27_] alludes to the excitement of the public mind, occasioned by the case of the Goodwin children. "I have often," he says, "heard persons who were of the neighborhood, speak of the great consternation it occasioned." In citing this author, in the present discussion, certain facts are always to be borne in mind. One of his sisters was the wife of Cotton Mather's son, towards whom Hutchinson cherished sentiments appropriate to such a near connection, and of which Samuel Mather was, there is no reason to doubt, worthy. In the Preface to his first volume he speaks thus: "I am obliged to no other person more than to my friend and brother, the Reverend Mr. Mather, whose library has been open to me, as it had been before to the Reverend Mr. Prince, who has taken from thence the greatest and most valuable part of what he had collected." Moreover, this very library was, it can hardly be questioned, that of Cotton Mather; of which, in his Diary, he speaks as "very great." In an interesting article, to which I may refer again, in the _Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society_, [_IV., ii., 128_], we are told that, in the inventory of the estate of Cotton Mather, filed by his Administrator, "not a single book is mentioned among the assets of this eccentric scholar." He had, it is to be presumed, given them all, in his life-time, to his son, who succeeded to his ministry in the North Church, in 1732. When the delicacy of his relation to the Mather family and the benefit he was deriving from that library are considered, the avoidance, by Hutchinson, of any unpleasant reference to Cotton Mather, by name, is honorable to his feelings. But he maintained, nevertheless, a faithful allegiance to the truth of history, as the following, as well as many other passages, in his invaluable work, strikingly show. They prove that he regarded Mather's "printed account" of the case of the Goodwin children, as having a very important relation to the immediately subsequent delusion in Salem. "The eldest was taken," he says, "into a Minister's family, where at first she behaved orderly, but after some time suddenly fell into her fits." "The account of her sufferings is in print; some things are mentioned as extraordinary, which tumblers are every day taught to perform; others seem more than natural; but it was a time of great credulity. * * * The printed account was published with a Preface by Mr. Baxter. * * * It obtained credit sufficient, together with other preparatives, to dispose the whole country to be easily imposed upon, by the more extensive and more tragical scene, which was presently after acted at Salem and other parts of the county of Essex." After mentioning several works published in England, containing "_witch-stories_," witch-trials, etc., he proceeds: "All these books were in New England, and the conformity between the behavior of Goodwin's children, and most of the supposed be-witched at Salem, and the behavior of those in England, is so exact, as to leave no room to doubt the stories had been read by the New England persons themselves, or had been told to them by others who had read them. Indeed this conformity, instead of giving suspicion, was urged in confirmation of the truth of both. The Old England demons and the New being so much alike." It thus appears that the opinion was entertained, in England and this country, that the notoriety given to the case of the Goodwin children, especially by Mather's printed account of it, had an efficient influence in bringing on the "tragical scene," shortly afterwards exhibited at Salem. This opinion is shown to have been correct, by the extraordinary similarity between them--the one being patterned after the other. The Salem case, in 1692, was, in fact, a substantial repetition of the Boston case, in 1688. On this point, we have the evidence of Cotton Mather himself. The Rev. John Hale of Beverly, who was as well qualified as any one to compare them, having lived in Charlestown, which place had been the residence of the Goodwin family, and been an active participator in the prosecutions at Salem, in his book, entitled, _A modest Enquiry into the nature of Witchcraft_, written in 1697, but not printed until 1702, after mentioning the fact that Cotton Mather had published an account of the conduct of the Goodwin children, and briefly describing the manifestations and actions of the Salem girls, says: [_p. 24_] "I will not enlarge in the description of their cruel sufferings, because they were, in all things, afflicted as bad as John Goodwin's children at Boston, in the year 1689, as he, that will read Mr. Mather's book on _Remarkable Providences_, p. 3. &c., may read part of what these children, and afterwards sundry grown persons, suffered by the hand of Satan, at Salem Village, and parts adjacent, _Anno 1691-2_, yet there was more in their sufferings than in those at Boston, by pins invisibly stuck into their flesh, pricking with irons (as, in part, published in a book printed 1693, viz: _The Wonders of the Invisible World_)." This is proof of the highest authority, that, with the exceptions mentioned, there was a perfect similarity in the details of the two cases. Mr. Hale's book had not the benefit of his revision, as it did not pass through the press until two years after his death; and we thus account for the error as to the date of the Goodwin affair. In making up his _Magnalia_, Mather had the use of Hale's manuscript and transferred from it nearly all that he says, in that work, about Salem Witchcraft. He copies the passage above quoted. The fact, therefore, is sufficiently attested by Mather as well as Hale, that, with the exceptions stated, there was, "in all things," an entire similarity between the cases of 1688 and 1692. Nay, further, in this same way we have the evidence of Cotton Mather himself, that his "printed account," of the case of the Goodwin children, was actually used, as an authority, by the Court, in the trials at Salem--so that it is clear that the said "account," contributed not only, by its circulation among the people, to bring on the prosecutions of 1692, but to carry them through to their fatal results--Mr. Hale says: [_p. 27_] "that the Justices, Judges and others concerned," consulted the precedents of former times, and precepts laid down by learned writers about Witchcraft. He goes on to enumerate them, mentioning Keeble, Sir Matthew Hale, Glanvil, Bernard, Baxter and Burton, concluding the list with "Cotton Mather's _Memorable Providences, relating to Witchcraft_, printed, anno 1689." Mather transcribes this also into the _Magnalia_. _The Memorable Providences_ is referred to by Hale, in another place, as containing the case of the Goodwin children, consisting, in fact mainly of it. [_p. 23_]. Mather, having Hale's book before him, must, therefore be considered as endorsing the opinion for which the Reviewer calls me to account, namely, that "the Goodwin affair had a very important relation to the Salem troubles." What is sustained touching this point, by both the Hutchinsons, Hale, and Cotton Mather himself, cannot be disturbed in its position, as a truth of History. The reader will, I trust, excuse me for going into such minute processes of investigation and reasoning, in such comparatively unimportant points. But, as the long-received opinions, in reference to this chapter of our history, have been brought into question in the columns of a journal, justly commanding the public confidence, it is necessary to re-examine the grounds on which they rest. This I propose to do, without regard to labor or space. I shall not rely upon general considerations, but endeavor, in the course of this discussion, to sift every topic on which the Reviewer has struck at the truth of history, fairly and thoroughly. On this particular point, of the relation of these two instances of alleged Witchcraft, in localities so near as Boston and Salem, and with so short an interval of time, general considerations would ordinarily be regarded as sufficient. From the nature of things, the former must have served to bring about the latter. The intercommunication between the places was, even then, so constant, that no important event could happen in one without being known in the other. By the thousand channels of conversation and rumor, and by Mather's printed account, endorsed by Baxter, and put into circulation throughout the country, the details of the alleged sufferings and extraordinary doings of the Goodwin children, must have become well known, in Salem Village. Such a conclusion would be formed, if no particular evidence in support of it could be adduced; but when corroborated by the two Hutchinsons, Mr. Hale, and, in effect, by Mather himself, it cannot be shaken. As has been stated, Cotton Mather, previous to his experience with those "pests," as the Reviewer happily calls "the Goodwin children," probably believed in the efficacy of prayer, and in that alone, to combat and beat down evil spirits and their infernal Prince; and John Goodwin's declaration, that it was not by his advice that he went to the law, is, therefore, entirely credible in itself. The protracted trial, however, patiently persevered in for several long months, when he had every advantage, in his own house, to pray the devil out of the eldest of the children, resulting in her becoming more and more "saucy," insolent, and outrageous, may have undermined his faith to an extent of which he might not have been wholly conscious. He says, in concluding his story in the _Magnalia_, [_Book VI., p. 75._] that, after all other methods had failed, "one particular Minister, taking particular compassion on the family, set himself to serve them in the methods prescribed by our Lord Jesus Christ. Accordingly, the Lord being besought thrice, in three days of prayer, with fasting on this occasion, the family then saw their deliverance perfected." It is worthy of reflection, whether it was not the fasting, that seems to have been especially enforced "on this occasion," and for "three days," that cured the girl. A similar application had before operated as a temporary remedy. Mather tells us, in his _Memorable Providences_, [_p. 31_,] referring to a date previous to the "three days" fasting, "Mr. Morton, of Charlestown, and Mr. Allen, Mr. Moody, Mr. Willard, and myself, of Boston, with some devout neighbors, kept another day of prayer at John Goodwin's house; and we had all the children present with us there. The children were miserably tortured, while we labored in our prayers; but our good God was nigh unto us, in what we called upon him for. From this day, the power of the enemy was broken; and the children, though assaults after this were made upon them, yet were not so cruelly handled as before." It must have been a hard day for all concerned. Five Ministers and any number of "good praying people," as Goodwin calls them, together with his whole family, could not but have crowded his small house. The children, on such occasions, often proved very troublesome, as stated above. Goodwin says "the two biggest, lying on the bed, one of them would fain have kicked the good men, while they were wrestling with God for them, had I not held him with all my power and might." Fasting was added to the prayers, that were kept up during the whole time, the Ministers relieving each other. If the fasting had been continued three days, it is not unlikely that the cure of the children would, then, have proved effectual and lasting. The account given in the _Memorables_ and the _Magnalia_, of the conduct of these children, under the treatment of Mather and the other Ministers, is, indeed, most ludicrous; and no one can be expected to look at it in any other light. He was forewarned that, in printing it, he would expose himself to ridicule. He tells us that the mischievous, but bright and wonderfully gifted, girl, the eldest of the children, getting, at one time, possession of his manuscript, pretended to be, for the moment, incapacitated, by the Devil, for reading it; and he further informs us, "She'd hector me at a strange rate for the work I was at, and threaten me with I know not what mischief for it. She got a History I was writing of this Witchcraft; and though she had, before this, read it over and over, yet now she could not read (I believe) one entire sentence of it; but she made of it the most ridiculous Travesty in the world, with such a patness and excess of fancy, to supply the sense that she put upon it, as I was amazed at. And she particularly told me, That I should quickly come to disgrace by that History." It is noticeable that the Goodwin children, like their imitators at Salem Village, the "afflicted," as they were called, were careful, except in certain cases of emergence, not to have their night's sleep disturbed, and never lost an appetite for their regular meals. I cannot but think that if the Village girls had, once in a while, like the Goodwin children, been compelled to go for a day or two upon very short allowance, it would have soon brought their "sport" to an end. Nothing is more true than that, in estimating the conduct and character of men, allowances must be made for the natural, and almost necessary, influence of the opinions and customs of their times. But this excuse will not wholly shelter the Mathers. They are answerable, as I have shown, more than almost any other men have been, for the opinions of their time. It was, indeed, a superstitious age; but made much more so by their operations, influence, and writings, beginning with Increase Mather's movement, at the assembly of the Ministers, in 1681, and ending with Cotton Mather's dealings with the Goodwin children, and the account thereof which he printed and circulated, far and wide. For this reason, then, in the first place, I hold those two men responsible for what is called "Salem Witchcraft." I have admitted and shown that Cotton Mather originally relied only upon prayer in his combat with Satanic powers. But the time was at hand, when other weapons than the sword of the Spirit were to be drawn in that warfare. FOOTNOTES: [1] When, in this article, I cite the name "Hutchinson," without any distinguishing prefix, I mean THOMAS HUTCHINSON, Chief-justice, Governor, and Historian of Massachusetts; so also when I cite the name "Mather," I mean COTTON MATHER. [2] The passages from Cotton Mather's Diary, used in this article, are mostly taken from the _Christian Examiner_, xi., 249; _Proceedings of Massachusetts Historical Society_, i., 289, and iv., 404; and _Life of Cotton Mather_, by William B. O. Peabody, in Sparks's _American Biography_, vi., 162. IV. THE RELATION OF THE MATHERS TO THE ADMINISTRATION OF MASSACHUSETTS, IN 1692. THE NEW CHARTER. THE GOVERNMENT UNDER IT ARRANGED BY THEM. ARRIVAL OF SIR WILLIAM PHIPS. No instance of the responsibility of particular persons for the acts of a Government, in the whole range of history, is more decisive or unquestionable, than that of the Mathers, father and son, for the trials and executions, for the alleged crime of Witchcraft, at Salem, in 1692. Increase Mather had been in England, as one of the Agents of the Colony of Massachusetts, for several years, in the last part of the reign of James II. and the beginning of that of William and Mary, covering much of the period between the abrogation of the first Charter and the establishment of the Province under the second Charter. Circumstances had conspired to give him great influence in organizing the Government provided for in the new Charter. His son describes him as "one that, besides a station in the Church of God, as considerable as any that his own country can afford, hath for divers years come off with honor, in his application to three crowned heads and the chiefest nobility of three kingdoms." Being satisfied that a restoration of the old Charter could not be obtained, Increase Mather acquiesced in what he deemed a necessity, and bent his efforts to have as favorable terms as possible secured in the new. His colleagues in the agency, Elisha Cooke and Thomas Oaks, opposed his course--the former, with great determination, taking the ground of the "old Charter or none." This threw them out of all communication with the Home Government, on the subject, and gave to Mr. Mather controlling influence. He was requested by the Ministers of the Crown to name the officers of the new Government; and, in fact, had the free and sole selection of them all. Sir William Phips was appointed Governor, at his solicitation; and, in accordance with earnest recommendations, in a letter from Cotton Mather, William Stoughton was appointed Deputy-governor, thereby superceding Danforth, one of the ablest men in the Province. In fact, every member of the Council owed his seat to the Mathers, and, politically, was their creature. Great was the exultation of Cotton Mather, when the intelligence reached him, thus expressed in his Diary: "The time for favor is now come, yea, the set-time is come. I am now to receive the answers of so many prayers, as have been employed for my absent parent, and the deliverance and settlement of my poor country. We have not the former Charter, but we have a better in the room of it; one which much better suits our circumstances. And, instead of my being made a sacrifice to wicked rulers, all the Councillors of the Province are of my father's nomination; and my father-in-law, with several related to me, and several brethren of my own Church, are among them. The Governor of the Province is not my enemy, but one whom I baptized, namely, Sir William Phips, and one of my flock, and one of my dearest friends." The whole number of Councillors was twenty-eight, three of them, at least, being of the Mather Church. John Phillips was Cotton Mather's father-in-law. Two years before, Sir William Phips had been baptized by Cotton Mather, in the presence of the congregation, and received into the Church. The "set-time," so long prayed for, was of brief duration. The influence of the Mathers over the politics of the Province was limited to the first part of Phips's short administration. At the very next election, in May, 1693, ten of the Councillors were left out; and Elisha Cooke, their great opponent, was chosen to that body, although negatived by Phips, in the exercise of his prerogative, under the Charter. Increase Mather came over in the same ship with the Governor, the _Nonsuch_, frigate. As Phips was his parishioner, owed to him his office, and was necessarily thrown into close intimacy, during the long voyage, he fell naturally under his influence, which, all things considered, could not have failed to be controlling. The Governor was an illiterate person, but of generous, confiding, and susceptible impulses; and the elder Mather was precisely fitted to acquire an ascendency over such a character. He had been twice abroad, in his early manhood and in his later years, had knowledge of the world, been conversant with learned men in Colleges and among distinguished Divines and Statesmen, and seen much of Courts and the operations of Governments. With a more extended experience and observation than his son, his deportment was more dignified, and his judgment infinitely better; while his talents and acquirements were not far, if at all, inferior. When Phips landed in Boston, it could not, therefore, have been otherwise than that he should pass under the control of the Mathers, the one accompanying, the other meeting him on the shore. They were his religious teachers and guides; by their efficient patronage and exertions he had been placed in his high office. They, his Deputy, Stoughton, and the whole class of persons under their influence, at once gathered about him, gave him his first impressions, and directed his movements. By their talents and position, the Mathers controlled the people, and kept open a channel through which they could reach the ear of Royalty. The Government of the Province was nominally in Phips and his Council, but the Mathers were a power behind the throne greater than the throne itself. The following letter, never before published, for which I am indebted to Abner C. Goodell, Esq., Vice-president of the Essex Institute, shows how they bore themselves before the Legislature, and communicated with the Home Government. "MY LORD: "I have only to assure your Lordship, that the generality of their Majesties subjects (so far as I can understand) do, with all thankfulness, receive the favors, which, by the new Charter, are granted to them. The last week, the General Assembly (which, your Lordship knows, is our New England Parliament) convened at Boston. I did then exhort them to make an Address of thanks to their Majesties; which, I am since informed, the Assembly have unanimously agreed to do, as in duty they are bound. I have also acquainted the whole Assembly, how much, not myself only, but they, and all this Province, are obliged to your Lordship in particular, which they have a grateful sense of, as by letters from themselves your Lordship will perceive. If I may, in any thing, serve their Majesties interest here, I shall, on that account, think myself happy, and shall always study to approve myself, My Lord, "Your most humble, thankful and obedient Servant, INCREASE MATHER. "BOSTON, N. E. June 23, 1692. "To the Rt. Hon^ble the _Earl of Nottingham_, his Maj^ties Principal Secretary of State at Whitehall." While they could thus address the General Assembly, and the Ministers of State, in London, the Government here was, as Hutchinson evidently regarded it, [_i., 365; ii., 69._] "a MATHER ADMINISTRATION." It was "short, sharp, and decisive." It opened in great power; its course was marked with terror and havoc; it ended with mysterious suddenness; and its only monument is Salem Witchcraft--the "_judicial murder_," as the Reviewer calls it, of twenty men and women, as innocent in their lives as they were heroic in their deaths. The _Nonsuch_ arrived in Boston harbor, towards the evening of the fourteenth of May, 1692. Judge Sewall's Diary, now in the possession of the Massachusetts Historical Society, has this entry, at the above date. "Candles are lighted before he gets into Town House, 8 companies wait on him to his house, and then on Mr. Mather to his, made no vollies, because 'twas Saturday night." The next day, the Governor attended, we may be sure, public worship with the congregation to which he belonged; and the occasion was undoubtedly duly noticed. After so long an absence, Increase Mather could not have failed to address his people, the son also taking part in the interesting service. The presence, in his pew, of the man who, a short time before, had been regenerated by their preaching, and now re-appeared among them with the title and commission of Governor of New England, added to the previous honors of Knighthood, at once suggested to all, and particularly impressed upon him, an appreciating conviction of the political triumph, as well as clerical achievement, of the associate Ministers of the North Boston Church. From what we know of the state of the public mind at that time, as emphatically described in a document I am presently to produce, there can be no question as to one class of topics and exhortations, wherewithal his Excellency and the crowded congregation were, that day, entertained. Monday, the sixteenth, was devoted to the ceremonies of the public induction of the new Government. There was a procession to the Town-house, where the Commissions of the Governor and Deputy-governor, with the Charter under which they were appointed, were severally read aloud to the people. A public dinner followed; and, at its close, Sir William was escorted to his residence. At the meeting of the Council, the next day, the seventeenth, the oaths of office having been administered, all round, it was voted "that there be a general meeting of the Council upon Tuesday next, the twenty-fourth of May current, in Boston, at two o'clock, post-meridian, to nominate and appoint Judges, Justices, and other officers of the Council and Courts of Justice within this their Majesties' Province belonging, and that notice thereof, or summons, be forthwith issued unto the members of the Council now absent." The following letter from Sir William Phips, to the Government at home, recently procured from England by Mr. Goodell, was published in the last volume of the _Collections of the Essex Institute_--Volume IX., Part II. I print it, entire, and request the reader to examine it, carefully, and to refer to it as occasion arises in this discussion, as it is a key to the whole transaction of the Witchcraft trials. Its opening sentence demonstrates the impression made by those who first met and surrounded him, on his excitable nature: "When I first arrived, I found this Province miserably harassed with a most horrible witchcraft or possession of devils, which had broke in upon several towns, some scores of poor people were taken with preternatural torments, some scalded with brimstone, some had pins stuck in their flesh, others hurried into the fire and water, and some dragged out of their houses and carried over the tops of trees and hills for many miles together; it hath been represented to me much like that of Sweden about thirty years ago; and there were many committed to prison upon suspicion of Witchcraft before my arrival. The loud cries and clamours of the friends of the afflicted people, with the advice of the Deputy-governor and many others, prevailed with me to give a Commission of Oyer and Terminer for discovering what Witchcraft might be at the bottom, or whether it were not a possession. The chief Judge in this Commission was the Deputy-governor, and the rest were persons of the best prudence and figure that could then be pitched upon. When the Court came to sit at Salem, in the County of Essex, they convicted more than twenty persons being guilty of witchcraft, some of the convicted confessed their guilt; the Court, as I understand, began their proceedings with the accusations of afflicted persons; and then went upon other humane evidences to strengthen that. I was, almost the whole time of the proceeding, abroad in the service of their Majesties, in the Eastern part of the country, and depended upon the judgment of the Court, as to a method of proceeding in cases of witchcraft; but when I came home I found many persons in a strange ferment of dissatisfaction, which was increased by some hot spirits that blew up the flame; but on inquiring into the matter I found that the Devil had taken upon him the name and shape of several persons who were doubtless innocent, and, to my certain knowledge, of good reputation; for which cause I have now forbidden the committing of any more that shall be accused, without unavoidable necessity, and those that have been committed I would shelter from any proceedings against them wherein there may be the least suspicion of any wrong to be done unto the innocent. I would also wait for any particular directions or commands, if their Majesties please to give me any, for the fuller ordering this perplexed affair. "I have also put a stop to the printing of any discourses one way or other, that may increase the needless disputes of people upon this occasion, because I saw a likelihood of kindling an inextinguishable flame if I should admit any public and open contests; and I have grieved to see that some, who should have done their Majesties, and this Province, better service, have so far taken council of passion as to desire the precipitancy of these matters; these things have been improved by some to give me many interruptions in their Majesties service [_which_] has been hereby unhappily clogged, and the persons, who have made so ill improvement of these matters here, are seeking to turn it upon me, but I hereby declare, that as soon as I came from fighting against their Majesties enemies, and understood what danger some of their innocent subjects might be exposed to, if the evidence of the afflicted persons only did prevail, either to the committing, or trying any of them, I did, before any application was made unto me about it, put a stop to the proceedings of the Court and they are now stopped till their Majesties pleasure be known. Sir, I beg pardon for giving you all this trouble; the reason is because I know my enemies are seeking to turn it all upon me. Sir, "I am Your most humble Serv^t WILLIAM PHIPS. "Dated at BOSTON IN NEW ENGLAND, the 14th of Oct^r 1692. "MEM^DM "That my Lord President be pleased to acquaint his Majesty in Council with the account received from New England, from Sir W^m Phips, the Governor there, touching proceedings against several persons for Witchcraft, as appears by the Governor's letter concerning those matters." The foregoing document, I repeat, indicates the kind of talk with which Phips was accosted, when stepping ashore. Exaggerated representations of the astonishing occurrences at Salem Village burst upon him from all, whom he would have been likely to meet. The manner in which the Mathers, through him, had got exclusive possession of the Government of the Province, probably kept him from mingling freely among, or having much opportunity to meet, any leading men, outside of his Council and the party represented therein. Writing in the ensuing October, at the moment when he had made up his mind to break loose from those who had led him to the hasty appointment of the Special Court, there is significance in his language. "I have grieved to see that some, who should have done their Majesties, and the Province, better service, have so far taken counsel of passion, as to desire the precipitancy of these matters." This refers to, and amounts to a condemnation of, the advisers who had influenced him to the rash measures adopted on his arrival. How rash and precipitate those measures were I now proceed to show. V. THE SPECIAL COURT OF OYER AND TERMINER. HOW IT WAS ESTABLISHED. WHO RESPONSIBLE FOR IT. THE GOVERNMENT OF THE PROVINCE CONCENTRATED IN ITS CHIEF-JUSTICE. So great was the pressure made upon Sir William Phips, by the wild panic to which the community had been wrought, that he ordered the persons who had been committed to prison by the Salem Magistrates, to be put in irons; but his natural kindness of heart and common sense led him to relax the unjustifiable severity. Professor Bowen, in his _Life of Phips_, embraced in Sparks's _American Biography_, [_vii., 81._] says: "Sir William seems not to have been in earnest in the proceeding; for the officers were permitted to evade the order, by putting on the irons indeed, but taking them off again, immediately." On Tuesday, the twenty-fourth of May, the Council met to consider the matter specially assigned to that day, namely, the nomination and appointment of Judicial officers. The Governor gave notice that he had issued Writs for the election of Representatives to convene in a General Court, to be held on the eighth of June. He also laid before the Council, the assigned business, which was "accordingly attended, and divers persons, in the respective Counties were named, and left for further consideration." On the twenty-fifth of May, the Council being again in session, the record says: "a further discourse was had about persons, in the several Counties, for Justices and other officers, and it was judged advisable to defer the consideration of fit persons for Judges, until there be an establishment of Courts of Justice." At the next meeting, on the twenty-seventh of May, it was ordered that the members of the Council, severally, and their Secretary, should be Justices of the Peace and Quorum, in the respective Counties where they reside: a long list, besides, was adopted, appointing the persons named in it Justices, as also Sheriffs and Coroners; and a SPECIAL COURT OF OYER AND TERMINER was established for the Counties of Suffolk, Essex, and Middlesex, consisting of William Stoughton, Chief-justice, John Richards, Nathaniel Saltonstall, Wait Winthrop, Bartholomew Gedney, Samuel Sewall, John Hathorne, Jonathan Corwin, and Peter Sargent, any five of them to be a quorum (Stoughton, Richards, or Gedney to be one of the five). When we consider that the subject had been specially assigned on the seventeenth, and discussed for two days, on the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth, to the conclusion that the appointment of Judges ought to be deferred, "_until there be an establishment of Courts of Justice_,"--which by the Charter, could only be done by the General Court which was to meet, as the Governor had notified them, in less than a fortnight--the establishment of the Court of Oyer and Terminer, on the twenty-seventh, must be regarded as very extraordinary. It was acknowledged to be an unauthorized procedure; the deliberate judgment of the Council had been expressed against it; and there was no occasion for such hurry, as the Legislature was so soon to assemble. There must have been a strong outside pressure, from some quarter, to produce such a change of front. From Wednesday to Friday, some persons of great influence must have been hard at work. The reasons assigned, in the record, for this sudden reversal, by the Council, of its deliberate decision, are the great number of criminals waiting trial, the thronged condition of the jails, and "this hot season of the year," on the twenty-seventh of May! It is further stated, "there being no judicatures or Courts of Justice yet established," that, therefore, such an extraordinary step was necessary. It is, indeed, remarkable, that, in the face of their own recorded convictions of expediency and propriety, and in disregard of the provisions of the Charter which, a few days before, they had been sworn to obey, the Council could have been led to so far "take counsel of passion," as to rush over every barrier to this precipitate measure. No specific reference is anywhere made, in the Journals, to Witchcraft; but the Court was to act upon all cases of felony and other crimes. The "Council Records" were not obtained from England, until 1846. Writers have generally spoken of the Court as consisting of seven Judges. Saltonstall's resignation does not appear to have led to a new appointment; and, perhaps, Hathorne, who generally acted as an Examining Magistrate, and signed most of the Commitments of the prisoners, did not often, if ever, sit as a Judge. In this way, the Court may have been reduced to seven. Stephen Sewall was appointed Clerk, and George Corwin, High Sheriff. Thus established and organized, on the twenty-seventh of May, the Court sat, on the second of June, for the trial of Bridget Bishop. Her Death-warrant was signed, on the eighth of June, the very day the Legislature convened; and she was executed on the tenth. This was, indeed, "precipitancy." Before the General Court had time, possibly, to make "an establishment of Courts of Justice" in the exercise of the powers bestowed upon it by the Charter, this Special Court--suddenly sprung upon the country, against the deliberate first judgment of the Council itself, and not called for by any emergency of the moment which the General Court, just coming on the stage, could not legally, constitutionally, and adequately, have met--dipped its hands in blood; and an infatuated and appalled people and their representatives allowed the wheels of the Juggernaut to roll on. The question, who are responsible for the creation, in such hot haste, of this Court, and for its instant entrance upon its ruthless work, may not be fully and specifically answered, with absolute demonstration, but we may approach a satisfactory solution of it. We know that a word from either of the Mathers would have stopped it. Their relations to the Government were, then, controlling. Further, if, at that time, either of the other leading Ministers--Willard, or Allen--had demanded delay, it would have been necessary to pause; but none appear to have made open opposition; and all must share in the responsibility for subsequent events. Phips says that the affair at Salem Village was represented to him as "much like that of Sweden, about thirty years ago." This Swedish case was Cotton Mather's special topic. In his _Wonders of the Invisible World_, he says that "other good people have in this way been harassed, but none in circumstances more like to ours, than the people of God in Sweedland." He introduces, into the _Wonders_, a separate account of it; and reproduces it in his _Life of Phips_, incorporated subsequently into the _Magnalia_. The first point he makes, in presenting this case, is as follows: "The inhabitants had earnestly sought God in prayer, and yet their affliction continued. Whereupon Judges had a Special Commission to find, and root out the hellish crew; and the rather, because another County in the Kingdom, which had been so molested, was delivered upon the execution of the Witches."--_The Wonders of the Invisible World._ Edit. London, 1693, p. 48. The importance attached by Cotton Mather to the affair in Sweden, especially viewed in connection with the foregoing extract, indicates that the change, I have conjectured, had come over him, as to the way to deal with Witches; and that he had reached the conclusion that prayer would not, and nothing but the gallows could, answer the emergency. In the Swedish case, was found the precedent for a "Special Commission of Oyer and Terminer." Well might the Governor have felt the importance of relieving himself, as far as possible, from the responsibility of having organized such a Court, and of throwing it upon his advisers. The tribunal consisted of the Deputy-governor, as Chief-justice, and eight other persons, all members of the Council, and each, as has been shown, owing his seat, at that Board, to the Mathers. The recent publication of this letter of Governor Phips enables us now to explain certain circumstances, before hardly intelligible, and to appreciate the extent of the outrages committed by those who controlled the administration of the Province, during the Witchcraft trials. In 1767, Andrew Oliver, then Secretary of the Province, was directed to search the Records of the Government to ascertain precedents, touching a point of much interest at that time. From his Report, part of which is given in Drake's invaluable _History of Boston_, [_p. 728_] it appears that the Deputy-governor, Stoughton, by the appointment of the Governor, attended by the Secretary, administered the oaths to the members of the House of Representatives, convened on the eighth of June, 1692; that, as Deputy-governor, he sat in Council, generally, during that year, and was, besides, annually elected to the Council, until his death, in 1701. All that time, he was sitting, in the double capacity of an _ex-officio_ and an elected member; and for much the greater part of it, in the absence of Phips, as acting Governor. The Records show that he sat in Council when Sir William Phips was present, and presided over it, when he was not present, and ever after Phips's decease, until a new Governor came over in 1699. His annual election, by the House of Representatives, as one of the twenty-eight Councillors, while, as Deputy or acting Governor, he was entitled to a seat, is quite remarkable. It gave him a distinct legislative character, and a right, as an elected member of the body, to vote and act, directly, in all cases, without restraint or embarrassment, in debate and on Committees, in the making, as well as administering, the law. In the letter now under consideration, Governor Phips says: "I was almost the whole time of the proceeding abroad, in the Service of their Majesties in the Eastern part of the country." The whole tenor of the letter leaves an impression that, being so much away from the scene, in frequent and long absences, he was not cognizant of what was going on. He depended "upon the judgment of the Court," as to its methods of proceeding; and was surprised when those methods were brought to his attention. Feeling his own incapacity to handle such a business, he was willing to leave it to those who ought to have been more competent. Indeed, he passed the whole matter over to the Deputy-governor. In a letter, for which I am indebted to Mr. Goodell, dated the twentieth of February, 1693, to the Earl of Nottingham, transmitting copies of laws passed by the General Court, Governor Phips says: "Not being versed in law, I have depended upon the Lieu^t Gov^r, who is appointed Judge of the Courts, to see that they be exactly agreeable to the laws of England, and not repugnant in any part. If there be any error, I know it will not escape your observation, and desire a check may be given for what may be amiss." The closing sentence looks somewhat like a want of confidence in the legal capacity and judgment of Stoughton, owing perhaps, to the bad work he had made at the Salem trials, the Summer before; but the whole passage shows that Phips, conscious of his own ignorance of such things, left them wholly to the Chief-justice. The Records show that he sat in Council to the close of the Legislature, on the second of July. But the main business was, evidently, under the management of Stoughton, who was Chairman of a large Joint Committee, charged with adjusting the whole body of the laws to the transition of the Colony, from an independent Government, under the first Charter, to the condition of a subject Province. One person had been tried and executed; and the Court was holding its second Session when the Legislature adjourned. Phips went to the eastward, immediately after the eighth of July. Again, on the first of August, he embarked from Boston with a force of four hundred and fifty men, for the mouth of the Kennebec. In the Archives of Massachusetts, Secretary's office, State House, Vol. LI., p. 9, is the original document, signed by Phips, dated on the first of August, 1692, turning over the Government to Stoughton, during his absence. It appears by Church's _Eastern Expeditions_, Part II., p. 82, edited by H. M. Dexter, and published by Wiggin & Lunt, Boston, 1867, that, during a considerable part of the month of August, the Governor must have been absent, engaged in important operations on the coast of Maine. About the middle of September, he went again to the Kennebec, not returning until a short time before the twelfth of October. In the course of the year, he also was absent for a while in Rhode Island. Although an energetic and active man, he had as much on his hands, arising out of questions as to the extent of his authority over Connecticut and Rhode Island and the management of affairs at the eastward, as he could well attend to. His Instructions, too, from the Crown, made it his chief duty to protect the eastern portions of his Government. The state of things there, in connection with Indian assaults and outrages upon the outskirt settlements, under French instigation, was represented as urgently demanding his attention. Besides all this, his utmost exertions were needed to protect the sea-coast against buccaneers. In addition to the public necessities, thus calling him to the eastward, it was, undoubtedly, more agreeable to his feelings, to revisit his native region and the home of his early years, where, starting from the humblest spheres of mechanical labor and maritime adventure, as a ship-carpenter and sailor, he had acquired the manly energy and enterprise that had conducted him to fortune, knightly honor, and the Commission of Governor of New England. All the reminiscences and best affections of his nature made him prompt to defend the region thus endeared to him. It was much more congenial to his feelings than to remain under the ceremonial and puritanic restraints of the seat of Government, and involved in perplexities with which he had no ability, and probably no taste, to grapple. He was glad to take himself out of the way; and as his impetuous and impulsive nature rendered those under him liable to find him troublesome, they were not sorry to have him called elsewhere. I have mentioned these things as justifying the impression, conveyed by his letter, that he knew but little of what was going on until his return in the earlier half of October. Actual absence at a distance, the larger part of the time, and engrossing cares in getting up expeditions and supplies for them while he was at home--particularly as, from the beginning, he had passed over the business of the Court entirely to his Deputy, Stoughton--it is not difficult to suppose, had prevented his mind being much, if at all, turned towards it. We may, therefore, consider that the witchcraft prosecutions were wholly under the control of Stoughton and those, who, having given him power, would naturally have influence over his exercise of it. Calling in question the legality of the Court, Hutchinson expresses a deep sense of the irregularity of its proceedings; although, as he says, "the most important Court to the life of the subject which ever was held in the Province," it meets his unqualified censure, in many points. In reference to the instance of the Jury's bringing in a verdict of "Not guilty," in the case of Rebecca Nurse, and being induced, by the dissatisfaction of the Court, to go out again, and bring her in "Guilty," he condemns the procedure. Speaking of a wife or husband being allowed to accuse one the other, he breaks out: "I shudder while I am relating it;" and giving the results at the last trial, he says: "This Court of Oyer and Terminer, happy for the country, sat no more." Its proceedings were arbitrary, harsh, and rash. The ordinary forms of caution and fairness were disregarded. The Judges made no concealment of a foregone conclusion against the Prisoners at the Bar. No Counsel was allowed them. The proceedings were summary; and execution followed close upon conviction. While it was destroying the lives of men and women, of respectable position in the community, of unblemished and eminent Christian standing, heads of families, aged men and venerable matrons, all the ordinary securities of society, outside of the tribunal, were swept away. In the absence of Sir William Phips, the Chief-justice absolutely absorbed into his own person the whole Government. His rulings swayed the Court, in which he acted the part of prosecutor of the Prisoners, and overbore the Jury. He sat in judgment upon the sentences of his own Court; and heard and refused, applications and supplications for pardon or reprieve. The three grand divisions of all constitutional or well-ordered Governments were, for the time, obliterated in Massachusetts. In the absence of Phips, the Executive functions were exercised by Stoughton. While presiding over the Council, he also held a seat as an elected ordinary member, thus participating in, as well as directing, its proceedings, sharing, as a leader, in legislation, acting on Committees, and framing laws. As Chief-justice, he was the head of the Judicial department. He was Commander-in-chief of the military and naval forces and forts within the Province proper. All administrative, legislative, judicial, and military powers were concentrated in his person and wielded by his hand. No more shameful tyranny or shocking despotism was ever endured in America, than, in "the dark and awful day," as it was called, while the Special Commission of Oyer and Terminer was scattering destruction, ruin, terror, misery and death, over the country. It is a disgrace to that generation, that it was so long suffered; and, instead of trying to invent excuses, it becomes all subsequent generations to feel--as was deeply felt, by enlightened and candid men, as soon as the storm had blown over and a prostrate people again stood erect, in possession of their senses--that all ought, by humble and heart-felt prayer, to implore the divine forgiveness, as one of the Judges, fully as misguided at the time as the rest, did, to the end of his days. As all the official dignities of the Province were combined in Stoughton, he seems hardly to have known in what capacity he was acting, as different occasions arose. He signed the Death-warrant of Bridget Bishop, without giving himself any distinctive title, with his bare name and his private seal. It is easy to imagine how this lodging of the whole power of the State in one man, destroyed all safeguards and closed every door of refuge. When the express messenger of the poor young wife of John Willard, or the heroic daughter of Elizabeth How, or the agents of the people of the village, of all classes, combined in supplication in behalf of Rebecca Nurse, rushing to Boston to lay petitions for pardon before the Governor, upon being admitted to his presence, found themselves confronted by the stern countenance of the same person, who, as Chief-justice, had closed his ears to mercy and frowned the Jury into Conviction; their hearts sunk within them, and all realized that even hope had taken flight from the land. Such was the political and public administration of the Province of Massachusetts, during the Summer of 1692, under which the Witchcraft prosecutions were carried on. It was conducted by men whom the Mathers had brought into office, and who were wholly in their counsels. If there is, I repeat, an instance in history where particular persons are responsible for the doings of a Government, this is one. I conclude these general views of the influence of Increase and Cotton Mather upon the ideas of the people and the operations of the Government, eventuating in the Witchcraft tragedy, by restating a proposition, which, under all the circumstances, cannot, I think, be disputed, that, if they had been really and earnestly opposed to the proceedings, at any stage, they could and would have stopped them. I now turn to a more specific consideration of the subject of Cotton Mather's connection with the Witchcraft delusion of 1692. VI. COTTON MATHER'S CONNECTION WITH THE COURT. SPECTRAL EVIDENCE. LETTER TO JOHN RICHARDS. ADVICE OF THE MINISTERS. I am charged with having misrepresented the part Cotton Mather, in particular, bore in this passage of our history. As nearly the whole community had been deluded at the time, and there was a general concurrence in aiding oblivion to cover it, it is difficult to bring it back, in all its parts, within the realm of absolute knowledge. Records--municipal, ecclesiastical, judicial, and provincial--were willingly suffered to perish; and silence, by general consent, pervaded correspondence and conversation. Notices of it are brief, even in the most private Diaries. It would have been well, perhaps, if the memory of that day could have been utterly extinguished; but it has not. On the contrary, as, in all manner of false and incorrect representations, it has gone into the literature of the country and the world and become mixed with the permanent ideas of mankind, it is right and necessary to present the whole transaction, so far as possible, in the light of truth. Every right-minded man must rejoice to have wrong, done to the reputation of the dead or living, repaired; and I can truly say that no one would rejoice more than I should, if the view presented of Cotton Mather, in the _North American Review_, of April, 1869, could be shown to be correct. In this spirit, I proceed to present the evidence that belongs to the question. The belief of the existence of a personal Devil was then all but universally entertained. So was the belief of ghosts, apparitions, and spectres. There was no more reluctance to think or speak of them than of what we call natural objects and phenomena. Great power was ascribed to the Devil over terrestrial affairs; but it had been the prevalent opinion, that he could not operate upon human beings in any other way than through the instrumentality of other human beings, in voluntary confederation with him; and that, by means of their spectres, he could work any amount of mischief. While this opinion prevailed, the testimony of a witness, that he had seen the spectre of a particular person afflicting himself or any one else, was regarded as proof positive that the person, thus spectrally represented, was in league with the Devil, or, in other words, a Witch. This idea had been abandoned by some writers, who held that the Devil could make use of the spectre of an innocent person, to do mischief; and that, therefore, it was not positive or conclusive proof that any one was a Witch because his spectre had been seen tormenting others. The logical conclusion, from the views of these later writers, was that spectral evidence, as it was called, bearing against an accused party, was wholly unreliable and must be thrown out, entirely, in all cases. The Reviewer says the "Clergy of New England" adopted the views of the writers just alluded to, and held that spectral evidence was unreliable and unsafe, and ought to be utterly rejected; and particularly maintains that such was the opinion of Cotton Mather. It is true that they professed to have great regard for those writers; but it is also true, that neither Mather nor the other Ministers in 1692, adopted the conclusion which the Reviewer allows to be inevitably demanded by sound reason and common sense, namely, that "no spectral evidence must be admitted." On the contrary, they did authorize the "admission" of spectral evidence. This I propose to prove; and if I succeed in doing it, the whole fabric of the article in the _North American Review_ falls to the ground. It is necessary, at this point, to say a word as to the _Mather Papers_. They were published by a Committee of the Massachusetts Historical Society, in 1868. My work was published in 1867. The Reviewer, and certain journals that have committed themselves to his support, charge me with great negligence in not having consulted those papers, _not then in print_. Upon inquiry, while making my researches, I was informed, by those having them in hand preparatory to their going to press, that they contained nothing at all essential to my work; and the information was correct. Upon examining the printed volume, I cannot find a single item that would require an alteration, addition, or omission to be made in my work. But they are quite serviceable in the discussion to which the article in the _North American Review_ compels me. To return to the issue framed by the Reviewer. He makes a certain absolute assertion, repeats it in various forms, and confidently assumes it, all the way through, as in these passages: "Stoughton admitted spectral evidence; Mather, in his writings on the subject, denounced it, as illegal, uncharitable, and cruel." "He ever testified against it, both publicly and privately; and, particularly in his Letter to the Judges, he besought them that they would by no means admit it; and when a considerable assembly of Ministers gave in their _Advice_ about the matter, he not only concurred with the advice, but he drew it up." "The _Advice_ was very specific in excluding spectral testimony." He relies, in the first place, and I may say chiefly, in maintaining this position--namely, that Mather denounced the _admission_ of spectral testimony and demanded its _exclusion_--upon a sentence in a letter from Cotton Mather to John Richards, called by the Reviewer "his Letter to the Judges," among the _Mather Papers_, p. 891. Hutchinson informs us that Richards came into the country in low circumstances, but became an opulent merchant, in Boston. He was a member of Mather's Church, and one of the Special Court to try the witches. Its Session was to commence in the first week, probably on Thursday, the second day of June. The letter, dated on Tuesday, the thirty-first of May, is addressed to John Richards alone; and commences with a strong expression of regret that quite a severe indisposition will prevent his accompanying him to the trials. "Excuse me," he says, "from waiting upon you, with the utmost of my little skill and care, to assist the noble service, whereto you are called of God this week, the service of encountering the wicked spirits in the high places of our air, and of detecting and confounding of their confederates." He hopes, before the Court "gets far into the mysterious affair," to be able to "attend the desires" of Richards, which, to him "always are commands." He writes the letter, "for the strengthening of your honorable hands in that work of God whereto, (I thank him) he hath so well fitted you." After some other complimentary language, and assurances that God's "people have been fasting and praying before him for your direction," he proceeds to urge upon him his favorite Swedish case, wherein the "endeavours of the Judges to discover and extirpate the authors of that execrable witchcraft," were "immediately followed with a remarkable smile of God." Then comes the paragraph, which the Reviewer defiantly cites, to prove that Cotton Mather agreed with him, in the opinion that spectre evidence ought not to be "admitted." Before quoting the paragraph, I desire the reader to note the manner in which the affair in Sweden is brought to the attention of Richards, in the clauses just cited, in connection with what I have said in this article, page 16. Cotton Mather was in possession of a book on this subject. "It comes to speak English," he says, "by the acute pen of the excellent and renowned Dr. Horneck." Who so likely as Mather to have brought the case to the notice of Phips, pp. 14. It was urged upon Richards at about the same time that it was upon Phips; and as an argument in favor of "_extirpating_" witches, by the _action of a Court of Oyer and Terminer_. The paragraph is as follows: "And yet I must most humbly beg you that in the management of the affair in your most worthy hands, you do not lay more stress upon pure Spectre testimony than it will bear. When you are satisfied, and have good plain legal evidence, that the Demons which molest our poor neighbors do indeed represent such and such people to the sufferers, though this be a presumption, yet I suppose you will not reckon it a conviction that the people so represented are witches to be immediately exterminated. It is very certain that the Devils have sometimes represented the Shapes of persons not only innocent, but also very virtuous. Though I believe that the just God then ordinarily provides a way for the speedy vindication of the persons thus abused. Moreover, I do suspect that persons, who have too much indulged themselves in malignant, envious, malicious ebullitions of their souls, may unhappily expose themselves to the judgment of being represented by Devils, of whom they never had any vision, and with whom they have, much less, written any covenant. I would say this; if upon the bare supposal of a poor creature being represented by a spectre, too great a progress be made by the authority in ruining a poor neighbor so represented, it may be that a door may be thereby opened for the Devils to obtain from the Courts in the invisible world a license to proceed unto most hideous desolations upon the repute and repose of such as have yet been kept from the great transgression. If mankind have thus far once consented unto the credit of diabolical representations, the door is opened! Perhaps there are wise and good men, that may be ready to style him that shall advance this caution, a Witch-advocate, but in the winding up, this caution will certainly be wished for." This passage, strikingly illustrative, as it is, of Mather's characteristic style of appearing, to a cursory, careless reader, to say one thing, when he is really aiming to enforce another, while it has deceived the Reviewer, and led him to his quixotic attempt to revolutionize history, cannot be so misunderstood by a critical interpreter. In its general drift, it appears, at first sight, to disparage spectral evidence. The question is: Does it forbid, denounce, or dissuade, its introduction? By no means. It supposes and allows its introduction, but says, _lay not more stress upon it than it will bear_. Further, it affirms that it may afford "presumption" of guilt, though not sufficient for conviction, and removes objection to its introduction, by holding out the idea that, if admitted by the Court and it bears against innocent persons, "the just God, then, ordinarily provides a way for their speedy vindication." It is plain that the paragraph refers, not to the _admission_ of "diabolical representations," but to the _manner_ in which they are to be received, in the "management" of the trials, as will more fully appear, as we proceed. The suggestion, to reconcile Richards to the use of spectral evidence, that something would "ordinarily" providentially turn up to rescue innocent persons, against whom it was borne, was altogether delusive. It was an opinion of the day, that one of the most signal marks of the Devil's descent with power, would be the seduction, to his service, of persons of the most eminent character, even, if possible, of the very elect; and, hence, no amount of virtue or holiness of life or conversation, could be urged in defence of any one. The records of the world present no more conspicuous instances of Christian and saintlike excellence than were exhibited by Rebecca Nurse and Elizabeth How; but spectral testimony was allowed to destroy them. Indeed, it was impossible for a Court to put any restrictions on this kind of evidence, if once received. If the accusing girls exclaimed--all of them concurring, at the moment, in the declaration and in its details--that they saw, at that very instant, in the Court-room, before Judges and Jury, the spectre of the Prisoner assailing one of their number, and that one showing signs of suffering, what could be done to rebut their testimony? The character of the accused was of no avail. An _alibi_ could not touch the case. The distance from the Prisoner to the party professing to be tormented, was of no account. The whole proceeding was on the assumption that, however remote the body of the Prisoner, his or her spectre was committing the assault. No limitation of space or time could be imposed on the spectral presence. "Good, plain, legal evidence" was out of the question, where the Judges assumed, as Mather did, that "the molestations" then suffered by the people of the neighbourhood, were the work of Demons, and fully believed that the tortures and convulsions of the accusers, before their eyes, were, as alleged, caused by the spectres of the accused. To cut the matter short. The considerations Mather presents of the "inconvenience," as he calls it, of the spectral testimony, it might be supposed, would have led him to counsel--not as he did, against making "too great a progress" in its use--but its abandonment altogether. Why did he not, as the Reviewer says ought always have been done, protest utterly against its admission at all? The truth is, that neither in this letter, nor in any way, at any time, did he ever recommend caution _against_ its use, but _in_ its use. It may be asked, what did he mean by "not laying more stress upon spectre testimony than it will bear," and the general strain of the paragraph? A solution of this last question may be reached as we continue the scrutiny of his language and actions. In this same letter, Mather says: "I look upon wounds that have been given unto spectres, and received by witches, as intimations, broad enough, in concurrence with other things, to bring out the guilty. Though I am not fond of assaying to give such wounds, yet, the proof [_of_] such, when given, carries with it what is very palpable." This alludes to a particular form of spectral evidence. One of the "afflicted children" would testify that she saw and felt the spectre of the accused, tormenting her, and struck at it. A corresponding wound or bruise was found on the body, or a rent in the garments, of the accused. Mather commended this species of evidence, writing to one of the Judges, on the eve of the trials. He not only commends, but urges it as conclusive of guilt. Referring to what constituted the bulk of the evidence of the accusing girls, and which was wholly spectral in its nature--namely, that they were "hurt" by an "unseen hand"--he charges Richards, if he finds such "hurt" to be inflicted by the persons accused, "Hold them, for you have catched a witch." He recommends putting the Prisoners upon repeating the "Lord's prayer" or certain "other Systems of Christianity." He endorses the evidence derived from "poppits," "witch-marks," and even the "water ordeal." He advised a Judge, just proceeding to sit in cases of life and death, to make use of "cross and swift questions," as the means of bringing the accused "into confusion, likely to lead them into confession." Whoever examines, carefully, this letter to Richards, cannot, I think, but conclude that, instead of exonerating Mather, it fixes upon him the responsibility for the worst features of the Witchcraft Trials. The next document on which the Reviewer relies is the _Return of the Ministers consulted by his Excellency and the honorable Council, upon the present Witchcraft in Salem Village_. It is necessary to give it entire, as follows: ["I. The afflicted state of our poor neighbours, that are now suffering by molestations from the invisible world, we apprehend so deplorable, that we think their condition calls for the utmost help of all persons in their several capacities. "II. We cannot but, with all thankfulness, acknowledge the success which the merciful God has given to the sedulous and assiduous endeavours of our honorable rulers, to defeat the abominable witchcrafts which have been committed in the country, humbly praying, that the discovery of those mysterious and mischievous wickednesses may be perfected.] "III. We judge that, in the prosecution of these and all such witchcrafts, there is need of a very critical and exquisite caution, lest by too much credulity for things received only upon the Devil's authority, there be a door opened for a long train of miserable consequences, and Satan get an advantage over us; for we should not be ignorant of his devices. "IV. As in complaints upon witchcrafts there may be matters of enquiry which do not amount unto matters of presumption, and there may be matters of presumption which yet may not be reckoned matters of conviction, so it is necessary, that all proceedings thereabout be managed with an exceeding tenderness towards those that may be complained of, especially if they have been persons formerly of an unblemished reputation. "V. When the first inquiry is made into the circumstances of such as may lie under any just suspicion of witchcrafts, we could wish that there may be admitted as little as possible of such noise, company, and openness, as may too hastily expose them that are examined; and that there may nothing be used as a test for the trial of the suspected, the lawfulness whereof may be doubted among the people of God; but that the directions given by such judicious writers as Perkins and Bernard may be consulted in such a case. "VI. Presumptions whereupon persons may be committed, and, much more, convictions whereupon persons may be condemned as guilty of witchcrafts, ought certainly to be more considerable than barely the accused persons being represented by a spectre unto the afflicted; [inasmuch as it is an undoubted and a notorious thing, that a Demon may, by God's permission, appear, even to ill purposes, in the shape of an innocent, yea, and a virtuous man.] Nor can we esteem alterations made in the sufferers, by a look or touch of the accused, to be an infallible evidence of guilt, but frequently liable to be abused by the Devil's legerdemain. "VII. We know not whether some remarkable affront, given the Devil, by our disbelieving of those testimonies, whose whole force and strength is from him alone, may not put a period unto the progress of the dreadful calamity begun upon us, in the accusation of so many persons, whereof some, we hope, are yet clear from the great transgression laid to their charge. ["VIII. Nevertheless, we cannot but humbly recommend unto the Government, the speedy and vigorous prosecutions of such as have rendered themselves obnoxious, according to the directions given in the laws of God, and the wholesome Statutes of the English nation, for the detection of Witchcrafts."] I have enclosed the _first_, _second_ and _eighth_ Sections, and a part of the _sixth_, in brackets, for purposes that will appear, in a subsequent part of this discussion. The _Advice of the Ministers_ was written by Cotton Mather. As in his letter to Richards, he does not caution _against_ the use, but _in_ the use, of spectral evidence. Not a word is said denouncing its introduction or advising its entire rejection. We look in vain for a line or a syllable disapproving the trial and execution just had, resting as they did, entirely upon spectral evidence: on the contrary, the _second_ Section applauds what had been done; and prays that the work entered upon may be perfected. The first clauses in the _fourth_ Section sanction its admission, as affording ground of "presumption," although "it may not be matter of conviction." The _sixth_ Section, while it appears to convey the idea that spectral evidence alone ought not to be regarded as sufficient, contains, at the same time, a form of expression, that not only requires its reception, but places its claims on the highest possible grounds. "_A Demon may, by GOD'S PERMISSION, appear, even to ill purposes, in the shape of an innocent, yea, and a virtuous man._" It is sufficiently shocking to think that anything, _to ill purposes_, can be done by Divine permission; but horrible, indeed, to intimate that the Devil can have that permission to malign and murder an innocent person. If the spectre appears by God's permission, the effect produced has his sanction. The blasphemous supposition that God permits the Devil thus to bear false witness, to the destruction of the righteous, overturns all the sentiments and instincts of our moral and religious nature. In using this language, the Ministers did not have a rational apprehension of what they were saying, which is the only apology for much of the theological phraseology of that day. This phrase, "God's permission," had quite a currency at the time; and if it did not reconcile the mind, subdued it to wondering and reverent silence. It will be seen that Mather, on other occasions, repeated this idea, in various and sometimes stronger terms. The _third_, _fifth_, _seventh_, and last clauses of the _fourth_ Sections, contain phrases which will become intelligible, as we advance in the examination of Mather's writings, relating to the subject of witchcraft. Here it may, again, be safely said, that if Increase and Cotton Mather had really, as the Reviewer affirms, been opposed to the _admission_ of spectral testimony, this was the time for them to have said so. If, at this crisis, they had "denounced it, as illegal, uncharitable and cruel," no more blood would have been shed. If the _Advice_ had even recommended, in the most moderate terms, its absolute exclusion from every stage of the proceedings, they would have come to an end. But it assumes its introduction, and only suggests "disbelief" of it, in avoiding to act upon it, in "some" instances. Hutchinson states the conclusion of the matter, after quoting the whole document. "The Judges seem to have paid more regard to the last article of this _Return_, than to several which precede it; for the prosecutions were carried on with all possible vigor, and without that exquisite caution which is proposed."--_History_, ii., 54. The _Advice_ was skilfully--it is not uncharitable to say--artfully drawn up. It has deceived the Reviewer into his statement that it was "very specific in excluding spectral testimony." A careless reader, or one whose eyes are blinded by a partisan purpose, may not see its real import. The paper is so worded as to mislead persons not conversant with the ideas and phraseology of that period. But it was considered by all the Judges, and the people in general, fully to endorse the proceedings in the trial of Bridget Bishop, and to advise their speedy and vigorous continuance. It was spectral testimony that overwhelmed her. It was the fatal element that wrought the conviction of every person put on trial, from first to last; as was fully proved, five months afterwards, when Sir William Phips, under circumstances I shall describe, bravely and peremptorily forbid, as the Ministers failed to do, the "trying," or even "committing," of any one, on the evidence of "the afflicted persons," which was wholly spectral. When thus, by his orders, it was utterly thrown out, the life of the prosecutions became, at once, extinct; and, as Mather says, the accused were cleared as fast as they were tried.--_Magnalia_, Book II., page 64. The suggestion that caution was to be used in handling this species of evidence, and that it was to be received as affording grounds of "presumption," to be corroborated or reinforced by other evidence, practically was of no avail. If received, at all, in any stage, or under any name, it necessarily controlled every case. No amount of evidence, of other kinds, could counterbalance or stand against it: nothing was needed to give it full and fatal effect. It struck Court, Jury, and people, nay, even the Prisoners themselves, in many instances, with awe. It dispensed, as has been mentioned, with the presence of the accused, on the spot, where and when the crime was alleged to have been committed, or within miles or hundreds of miles of it. No reputation for virtue or piety could be pleaded against it. The doctrine which Cotton Mather proclaimed, on another occasion, that the Devil might appear as Angel of Light, completed the demolition of the securities of innocence. There was no difficulty in getting "other testimony" to give it effect. In the then state of the public mind, indiscriminately crediting every tale of slander and credulity, looking at every thing through the refracting and magnifying atmosphere of the blindest and wildest passions, it was easy to collect materials to add to the spectral evidence, thereby, according to the doctrine of the Ministers, to raise the "presumption," to the "conviction" of guilt. Even our Reviewer finds evidence to "substantiate" that, given against George Burroughs, resting on spectres, in his feats of strength, in some malignant neighborhood scandals, and in exaggerated forms of parish or personal animosities. VII. ADVICE OF THE MINISTERS, FURTHER CONSIDERED. COTTON MATHER'S PLAN FOR DEALING WITH SPECTRAL TESTIMONY. The _Advice of the Ministers_ is a document that holds a prominent place in our public history; and its relation to events needs to be elucidated. In his _Life of Sir William Phips_, Cotton Mather has this paragraph: "And Sir William Phips arriving to his Government, after this ensnaring horrible storm was begun, did consult the neighboring Ministers of the Province, who made unto his Excellency and the Council, a Return (drawn up, at their desire, by Mr. Mather, the younger, as I have been informed) wherein they declared."--_Magnalia_, Book II., page 63. He then gives, without intimating that any essential or substantial part of the _declaration_, or _Advice_, was withheld, the Sections _not_ included in brackets.--_Vide_, pages 21, 22, _ante_. It is to be observed that Phips is represented as having asked the Ministers for their advice, and their answer as having been made to his "Excellency and the Council." There is no mention of this transaction in the Records of the Council. Phips makes no reference to it in his letter of the fourteenth of October, which is remarkable, as it would have been to his purpose, in explaining the grounds of his procedure, in organizing, and putting into operation, the judicial tribunal at Salem. It may be concluded, from all that I shall present,--Sir William, having given over the whole business to his Deputy and Chief-justice, with an understanding that he was authorized to manage it, in all particulars,--that this transaction with the Ministers may never have been brought to the notice of the Governor at all: his official character and title were, perhaps, referred to, as a matter of form. The Council, as such, had nothing to do with it; but the Deputy-governor and certain individual members of the Council, that is, those who, with him, as Chief-justice, constituted the Special Court, asked and received the _Advice_. Again: the paragraph, as constructed by Mather, just quoted, certainly leaves the impression on a reader, that Phips applied for the _Advice of the Ministers_, at or soon after his arrival. The evidence, I think, is conclusive, that the _Advice_ was not asked, until after the first Session of the Court had been held. This is inferrible from the answer of the Ministers, which is dated thirteen days after the first trial, and five days after the execution of a sentence then passed. It alludes to the _success_ which had been given to the prosecutions. If the Government had asked counsel of the Ministers before the trials commenced, it is inexplicable and incredible, besides being inexcusable, that the Ministers should have delayed their reply until after the first act of the awful tragedy had passed, and blood begun to be shed. Hutchinson expressly says: "The further trials were put off to the adjournment, the thirtieth of June. The Governor and Council thought proper, _in the mean time_, to take the opinion of several of the principal Ministers, upon the state of things, as they then stood. This was an old Charter practice."--_History_, ii., 52. It has been regarded as a singular circumstance, that after such pains had been taken, and so great a stretch of power practised, to put a Court so suddenly in operation to try persons accused of witchcraft, on the pretence, too, recorded in the Journal of the Council, of the "thronged" condition of the jails, at that "hot season," and after trying one person only, it should have adjourned for four weeks. Perhaps, by a collation of passages and dates, we may reach a probable explanation. In his letter to "the Ministers in and near Boston," written in January, 1696, after considering briefly, and in forcible language, the fearful errors from which the Delusion of 1692 had risen, and solemnly reminding them of what they ought to have done to lead their people out of such errors, Calef brings their failure to do it home to them, in these pungent words: "If, instead of this, you have some by word and writing propagated, and others recommended, such doctrines, and abetted the false notions which are so prevalent in this apostate age, it is high time to consider it. If, when authority found themselves almost nonplust in such prosecutions, and sent to you for your advice what they ought to do, and you have then thanked them for what they had already done (and thereby encouraged them to proceed in those very by-paths already fallen into) it so much the more nearly concerns you. _Ezek._, xxxiii., 2 to 8."--_Calef_, 92. Looking at this passage, in connection with that quoted just before from Hutchinson, we gather that something had occurred that "nonplust" the Court--some serious embarrassment, that led to its sudden adjournment--after the condemnation of Bridget Bishop, while many other cases had been fully prepared for trial by the then Attorney-general. Newton, and the parties to be tried had, the day before, been brought to Salem from the jail in Boston, and were ready to be put to the Bar. What was the difficulty? The following may be the solution. Brattle informs us, and he was able to speak with confidence, that "Major N. Saltonstall, Esq., who was one of the Judges, has left the Court, and is very much dissatisfied with the proceedings of it."--_Massachusetts Historical Collections, I., v., 75._ The questions arise; When and why did he leave the Court? The Records of the Council show that he was constant in his attendance at that Board, his name always appearing at the head of the roll of those present, until the sixteenth of June, from which date it does not appear again until the middle of February, 1693. The Legislature, in the exercise of its powers, under the Charter, had, near the close of 1692, established a regular Superior Court, consisting of Stoughton, Danforth--who had disapproved of the proceedings of the Special Court--Richards, Wait Winthrop, and Sewall. It continued, in January, 1693, witchcraft trials; but spectral evidence being wholly rejected, the prosecutions all broke down; and Stoughton, in consequence, left the Court in disgust. After all had been abandoned, and his own course, thereby, vindicated, Major Saltonstall re-appeared at the Council Board; and was re-elected by the next House of Representatives. His conduct, therefore, was very marked and significant. In the only way in which he, a country member, could express his convictions, as there were no such facilities, in the press or otherwise, for public discussions, as we now have, he made them emphatically known; and is worthy of the credit of being the only public man of his day who had the sense or courage to condemn the proceedings, at the start. He was a person of amiable and genial deportment; and, from the County Court files, in which his action, as a Magistrate, is exhibited in several cases, it is evident that he was methodical and careful in official business, but susceptible of strong impressions and convictions, and had, on a previous occasion manifested an utter want of confidence in certain parties, who, it became apparent at the first Session of the Court, were to figure largely in hearing spectral testimony, in most of the cases. He had no faith in those persons, and was thus, we may suppose, led to discredit, wholly, that species of testimony. From his attendance at the Council Board, up to the sixteenth of June, the day when the _Advice of the Ministers_ was probably received, it may be assumed that he attended also, to that time, the sittings of the Court; and that when he withdrew from the former, he did also from the latter. The date indicates that his action, in withdrawing, was determined by the import of the _Advice_. If a gentleman of his position and family, a grandson of an original Patentee, Sir Richard Saltonstall, and sitting as a Judge at the first trial, had the independence and manly spirit to express, without reserve, his disapprobation of the proceedings, the expression of Calef is explained; and the Court felt the obstacle that was in their way. Hence the immediate adjournment, and the resort to some extraordinary expedient, to remove it. This may account for the appeal to the Ministers. Great interest must have been felt in their reply, by all cognizant of the unexpected difficulty that had occurred. The document was admirably adapted to throw dust into the eyes of those who had expressed doubts and misgivings; but it did not deceive Saltonstall. He saw that it would be regarded by the other Judges, and the public in general, as an encouragement to continue the trials; and that, under the phraseology of what had the aspect of caution, justification would be found for the introduction, to an extent that would control the trials, of spectral evidence. The day after its date, he left his seat at the Council Board, withdrew from the Court, and washed his hands of the whole matter. The course of events demonstrates that the _Advice_ was interpreted, by all concerned, as applauding what had been done at the first trial, and earnestly urging that the work, thus begun, should be speedily and vigorously prosecuted. Upon the Ministers, therefore, rests the stigma for all that followed. There may have been, at that time, as there was not long afterward, some difference of opinion among the Ministers; and the paper may have had the character of a compromise--always dangerous and vicious, bringing some or all parties into a false position. Samuel Willard may have held, then, the opinion expressed in a pamphlet ascribed to him, published, probably, towards the close of the trials, that spectral evidence ought only to be allowed where it bore upon persons of bad reputation. The _fourth_ Section conciliated his assent to the document. This might have been the view of Increase Mather, who, after the trials by the Special Court were over, indicated an opinion, that time for further diligent "search" ought to have been allowed, before proceeding to "the execution of the most capital offenders;" and declared the very excellent sentiment, that "it becomes those of his profession to be very tender in the shedding of blood." The expressions, "exceeding tenderness," in the _fourth_ Section, and "the first inquiry," in the _fifth_--the latter conveying the idea of repeated investigations with intervals of time--were well adapted to gain his support of the whole instrument. If they were led to concur in the _Advice_, by such inducements, they were soon undeceived. "Unblemished reputation" was no protection; and the proceedings at the trials were swift, summary, and conclusive. It may be proper, at this point, to inquire what was meant by the peculiar phraseology of the _third_, _fifth_, _seventh_, and latter part of the _fourth_, Sections. It is difficult, writing as Cotton Mather often did, and had great skill in doing, in what Calef calls "the ambidexter" style, to ascertain his ideas. After the reaction had taken effect in the public mind, and he was put upon the defensive, he had much to say about some difference between him and the Judges. It clearly had nothing to do with the "admission" of spectral evidence; for that was the point on which the opinion of the Ministers was asked, and on which he voluntarily proffered remarks in his letter to one of the Judges, Richards. If he had been opposed to its "admission," nothing would have been easier, safer, or more demanded by the truth and his own honor, than for him to have said so. Indeed, his writings everywhere show that he was almost a _one idea_ man, on the subject of spectres; and, in some way or form, deemed their evidence indispensable and reliable. He, evidently, had some favorite plan or scheme, as to the method in which that kind of evidence was to be handled; and it was because he could not get it carried into effect, and for this reason alone, so far as we can discover, that he disapproved of the methods actually pursued by the Court. He never disclosed his plan, but shrunk from explaining it at length, "as too Icarian and presumptuous" a task for him to undertake. Let us see if we can glean his ideas from his writings. I call attention, in the first place, to the following clause, in his letter to Richards: "If, upon the bare supposal of a poor creature's being represented by a spectre, too great a progress be made by the authority, in ruining a poor neighbour so represented, it may be that a door may be thereby opened for the Devils to obtain from the Courts, in the invisible world, a license to proceed unto most hideous desolations upon the repute and repose of such as have been kept from the great transgression." "Too great a progress" conveys the suggestion that, upon the introduction of spectral evidence, there should be a delay in the proceedings of the Court, for some intermediate steps to be taken, before going on with the trial. We gather other intimations, to this effect, from other passages, as follows: "Now, in my visiting of the miserable, I was always of this opinion, that we were ignorant of what power the Devils might have, to do their mischiefs in the shapes of some that had never been explicitly engaged in diabolical confederacies, and that therefore, though many witchcrafts had been fairly detected on enquiries provoked and begun by spectral exhibitions, yet we could not easily be too jealous of the snares laid for us in the device of Satan. The world knows how many pages I have composed and published, and particular gentlemen in the Government know how many letters I have written, to prevent the excessive credit of spectral accusations; wherefore I have still charged the afflicted that they should cry out of nobody for afflicting them; but that, if this might be any advantage, they might privately tell their minds to some one person of discretion enough to make no ill use of their communications; accordingly there has been this effect of it, that the name of no one good person in the world ever came under any blemish by means of an afflicted person that fell under my particular cognizance; yea, no one man, woman, or child ever came into any trouble, for the sake of any that were afflicted, after I had once begun to look after them. How often have I had this thrown into my dish, 'that many years ago I had an opportunity to have brought forth such people as have, in the late storm of witchcraft, been complained of, but that I smothered it all'; and after that storm was raised at Salem, I did myself offer to provide meat, drink, and lodging for no less than six of the afflicted, that so an experiment might be made, whether prayer, with fasting, upon the removal of the distressed, might not put a period to the trouble then rising, without giving the civil authority the trouble of prosecuting those things, which nothing but a conscientious regard unto the cries of miserable families could have overcome the reluctance of the honorable Judges to meddle with. In short, I do humbly but freely affirm it, there is not a man living in this world who has been more desirous, than the poor man I, to shelter my neighbors from the inconveniences of spectral outcries; yea, I am very jealous I have done so much that way, as to sin in what I have done; such have been the cowardice and fearfulness where unto my regard to the dissatisfaction of other people has precipitated me. I know a man in the world, who has thought he has been able to convict some such witches as ought to die; but his respect unto the public peace has caused him rather to try whether he could not renew them by repentance."--_Calef_, 11. The careful reader will notice that "six of the afflicted," at Salem Village, would have included nearly the whole circle of the accusing girls there. If he had been allowed to take them into his exclusive keeping, he would have had the whole thing in his own hands. In his account of "the afflictions of Margaret Rule," printed by Calef, in his book, and from which the foregoing extracts have been made speaking of the "eight cursed spectres" with which she was assaulted, in the fall of 1693, Mather says: "She was very careful of my reiterated charges, _to forbear blazing their names_, lest any good person should come to suffer any blast of reputation, through the cunning malice of the great accuser; nevertheless, having since privately named them to myself, I will venture to say this of them, that they are a sort of wretches who, for these many years, have gone under as violent presumptions of witchcraft as, perhaps, any creatures yet living upon earth; although I am far from thinking that the visions of this young woman were evidence enough to prove them so."--_Calef_, 4. The following is from his _Wonders of the Invisible World_, 12: "If once a witch do ingeniously confess among us, no more spectres do, in their shapes, after this, trouble the vicinage; if any guilty creatures will accordingly, to so good purpose, confess their crime to any Minister of God, and get out of the snare of the Devil, as no Minister will discover such a conscientious confession, so, I believe, none in the authority will press him to discover it, but rejoice in a soul saved from death." In his _Life of Phips_, he says: "In fine, the country was in a dreadful ferment, and wise men foresaw a long train of dismal and bloody consequences. Hereupon they first advised, that the _afflicted_ might be kept asunder, in the closest privacy; and one particular person (whom I have cause to know), in pursuance of this advice, offered himself singly to provide accommodations for any six of them, that so the success of more than ordinary prayer, with fasting, might, with patience, be experienced, before any other courses were taken."--_Magnalia_, Book II., p. 62. Hutchinson gives an extract from a letter, written by John Allyn, Secretary of Connecticut, dated, "HARTFORD, March 18, 1693," to Increase Mather, as follows: "As to what you mention, concerning that poor creature in your town that is afflicted, and mentioned my name to yourself and son, I return you hearty thanks for your intimation about it, and for your charity therein mentioned; and I have great cause to bless God, who, of his mercy hitherto, hath not left me to fall into such an horrid evil."--_History_, ii., 61, note. Further, it was on account of some particular plan, in reference to the management of this description of evidence, I am inclined to think, that he felt the importance of being present at the trials. For this reason, he laments the illness that prevented his accompanying Richards to the Court, at its opening, on the second of June, to "assist the noble service," as he says, "with the utmost of my little skill and care." This language shows conclusively, by the way, the great influence he had, at that time, in directing the Government, particularly the Court. He would not have addressed one of the Judges, in such terms, had he not felt that his "skill and care" would be recognized and permitted to take effect. We may well lament, with him, that he could not have been present at the first trial. It would not, then, have been left to conjecture and scrutiny, to determine what his plan was; and an open attempt, to bring the Court to adopt it, might have given another turn to affairs. In his Diary, on the twenty-ninth of April, is the following: "This day I obtained help of God, that he would make use of me, as of a John, to be a herald of the Lord's Kingdom, now approaching." "My prayers did especially insist upon the horrible enchantments and possessions, broke forth in Salem Village, things of a most prodigious aspect, a good issue to those things, and my own direction and protection thereabouts, I did especially petition for." The date of this entry is important. On the eleventh, nineteenth, and twenty second of April, impressive scenes had been exhibited at Salem Village. Some of the most conspicuous cases of the preliminary examinations of persons arrested had occurred. The necessary steps were then being taken to follow up those examinations with a procedure that would excite the country to the highest pitch. The arrangements, kept concealed at Salem, and unsuspected by the public at large, were made and perfected in Boston. On the day after the date of the foregoing memorandum, a Magistrate in that place issued the proper order for the arrest of the Rev. George Burroughs; and officers were started express to Maine for that purpose. This was "the most prodigious aspect of affairs" at the time. All the circumstances must have been known by Mather. Hence his earnest solicitude that proceedings should be conducted under his own "direction and protection." The use of these terms, looks as if Mather contemplated the preliminary examinations as to take place under his direction and management, and will be borne in mind, when we come to consider the question of his having been, more or less, present at them. Disposed to take the most favorable and charitable view of such passages as have now been presented, I would gather from them that his mind may have recurred to his original and favorite idea, that prayer and fasting were the proper weapons to wield against witchcraft; but if they failed, then recourse was to be had to the terrors of the law. He desired to have the afflicted and the accused placed under the treatment of some one person, of discretion enough to make no ill use of their communications, to whom "they might privately tell their minds," and who, without "noise, company and openness," could keep, under his own control, the dread secrets of the former and exorcise the latter. He was willing, and desirous, of occupying this position himself, and of taking its responsibility. To signify this, he offered to provide "meat, drink, and lodging" for six of the afflicted children; to keep them "asunder in the closest privacy;" to be the recipient of their visions; and then to look after the accused, for the purpose of inducing them to confess and break loose from their league with Satan; to be exempt, except when he thought proper to do it, from giving testimony in Court, against parties accused; and to communicate with persons, thus secretly complained of, as he and his father afterwards did with the Secretary of Connecticut, and taking, as in that case, if he saw fit, a bare denial as sufficient for "sheltering" them, altogether, by keeping the accusation a profound secret in his own breast, as he acknowledges he had done to a considerable extent--at once claiming and confessing that he had "done so much that way, as to sin in what he had done." In language that indicates a correspondence and familiarity of intercourse with persons, acting on the spot, at Salem Village, such as authorized him to speak for them, he gives us to understand that they concurred with him in his proposed method of treating the cases: "There are very worthy men, who, having, been called by God, when and where this witchcraft first appeared upon the stage, to encounter it, are earnestly desirous to have it sifted unto the bottom of it." "Persons, thus disposed, have been men eminent for wisdom and virtue." "They would gladly contrive and receive an expedient, how the shedding of blood might be spared, by the recovery of witches not beyond the reach of pardon. And, after all, they invite all good men, in terms to this purpose." "Being amazed at the number and quality of those accused, of late, we do not know but Satan by his wiles may have enwrapt some innocent persons; and therefore should earnestly and humbly desire the most critical inquiry, upon the place, to find out the fallacy."--_Wonders_, 11. Indeed, Parris and his coadjutors, at Salem Village, to whom these passages refer, had, without authority, been, all along, exercising the functions Mather desired to have bestowed upon him, by authority. They had kept a controlling communication with the "afflicted children;" determined who were to be cried out publicly against, and when; rebuked and repressed the calling out, by name, of the Rev. Samuel Willard and many other persons, of both sexes, of "quality," in Boston; and arranged and managed matters, generally. The conjecture I have ventured to make, as to Mather's plan of procedure, explains, as the reader will perceive, by turning back to the Minister's _Advice_, [_Pages 21, 22, ante_] much of the phraseology of that curious document. "Very critical and exquisite caution," in the _third_ Section; "that all proceedings thereabout be managed with an exceeding tenderness towards those that may be complained of," in the _fourth_; "we could wish that there may be admitted as little as possible of such noise, company and openness, as may too hastily expose them that are examined," in the _fifth_; and the entire _seventh_ Section, expressly authorize the suppression, disregard, and _disbelief_, of _some_ of the Devil's accusations, on the grounds of expediency and public policy. Mather's necessary absence from the Court, at its first Session, prevented his "skill and care" being availed of, or any attempt being made to bring forward his plan. The proceedings, having thus commenced in an ordinary way, were continued at the several adjournments of the Court; and his experiment was never made. The fallacy of his ideas and the impracticability of his scheme must, indeed, have become evident, at the first moment it was brought under consideration. Inexperienced and blinded, as they were, by the delusions of the time and the excitements of the scene, and disposed, as they must have been, by all considerations, to comply with his wishes, the Judges had sense enough left to see that it would never do to take the course he desired. The trials could not, in that event, have gone on at all. The very first step would have been to abrogate their own functions as a Court; pass the accusers and accused over to his hands; and adjourn to wait his call. If the spectre evidence had been excluded from the "noise, confusion and openness" of the public Court-room, there would have been nothing left to go upon. If it had been admitted, under any conditions or limitations, merely to disclose matter of "presumption," a fatal difficulty would meet the first step of the enquiry. To the question, "Who hurts you?" no answer could be allowed to be given; and the "_Minister_," to whom the witness had confidentially given the names of persons whose spectres had tormented her, sitting, perhaps, in the Court-room at the time, would have to countenance the suppression of the evidence, and not be liable to be called to the stand to divulge his knowledge. The attempt to leave the accusers and the accused to be treated by the Minister selected for the purpose, in secure privacy, would have dissolved the Court before it had begun; and if this was what Mather meant when, afterwards, at any time, he endeavored to throw off the responsibility of the proceedings, by intimating that his proffered suggestions and services were disregarded, his complaint was most unreasonable. The truth is, the proposal was wholly inadmissible, and could not have been carried into effect. Besides, it would have overthrown the whole system of organized society, and given to whomsoever the management of the cases had thus, for the time, been relinquished, a power too fearful to be thought of, as lodged in one man, or in any private person. If he, or any other person, had been allowed by the Court to assume such an office, and had been known to hold, in secret custody, the accusing parties, receiving their confidential communications, to act upon them as he saw fit--sheltering some from prosecution and returning others to be proceeded against by the Court, which would be equivalent to a conviction and execution--it would have inaugurated a reign of terror, such as had not even then been approached, and which no community could bear. Every man and woman would have felt in the extremest peril, hanging upon the will of an irresponsible arbiter of life and death. Parris and his associates, acting without authority and in a limited sphere, had tried this experiment; had spread abroad, terror, havoc, and ruin; and incensed the surrounding region with a madness it took generations to allay. To have thought, for a moment, that it was desirable to be invested with such a power, "by the authority," shows how ignorant Cotton Mather was of human nature. However innocent, upright, or benevolent might be its exercise, he would have been assailed by animosities of the deepest, and approaches of the basest, kind. A hatred and a sycophancy, such as no Priest, Pope, or despot before, had encountered, would have been brought against him. He would have been assailed by the temptation, and aspersed by the imputation, of "Hush money," from all quarters; and, ultimately, the whole country would have risen against what would have been regarded as a universal levy of "Black Mail." Whoever, at any time, in any country, should undertake such an office as this, would be, in the end, the victim of the outraged sensibilities and passions of humanity. How long could it be endured, any where, if all men were liable to receive, from one authorized and enabled to determine their fate, such a missive as the Mathers addressed to the Secretary of Connecticut, and, at the best, to be beholden, as he felt himself to be, to the "charity" that might prevent their being exposed and prosecuted to the ruin of their reputation, if not to an ignominious death? Calef, alluding to Mather's pretensions to having been actuated by "exceeding tenderness towards persons complained of," expresses the sentiments all would feel, in such a condition of dependence upon the "charity" of one, armed with such fatal power over them: "These are some of the destructive notions of this age; and however the asserters of them seem sometimes to value themselves much upon sheltering their neighbors from spectral accusations, they may deserve as much thanks as that Tyrant, that having industriously obtained an unintelligible charge against his subjects, in matters wherein it was impossible they should be guilty, having thereby their lives in his power, yet suffers them of his mere grace to live, and will be called gracious Lord!"--_Preface._ The mere suspicion that some persons were behind the scene, exercising this power of pointing out some for prosecution and sheltering some from trial or arrest, produced, as Phips says, "a strange ferment of dissatisfaction," threatening to kindle "an inextinguishable flame." Brattle complained of it bitterly: "This occasions much discourse and many hot words, and is a very great scandal and stumbling block to many good people; certainly distributive justice should have its course, without respect to persons; and, although the said Mrs. Thatcher be mother-in-law to Mr. Curwin, who is one of the Justices and Judges, yet, if justice and conscience do oblige them to apprehend others on account of the afflicted their complaints, I cannot see how, without injustice and violence to conscience, Mrs. Thatcher can escape, when it is well known how much she is, and has been, complained of."--Letter dated October 8th, 1692, in the _Massachusetts Historical Society's Collections_, I., v., 69. Hezekial Usher, an eminent citizen of Boston, was arrested by Joseph Lynde, one of the Council, but suffered to remain, "for above a fortnight," in a private house, and afterwards to leave the Province. Brattle "cannot but admire" at this, and says: "Methinks that same justice, that actually imprisoned others, and refused bail for them, on any terms, should not be satisfied without actually imprisoning Mr. U., and refusing bail for him, when his case is known to be the very same with the case of those others." Brattle was a friend of Usher, and believed him innocent, yet was indignant that such barefaced partiality should be shown in judicial proceedings. The establishment of a regular systematized plan, committed to any individual, for sheltering some, while others would be handed back for punishment, would have been unendurable. As it was, Mather exposed himself to much odium, because it was understood that he was practising, on his own responsibility and privately, upon the plan he wished the Judges to adopt, as a principle and method of procedure, in all the trials. He says: "It may be, no man living ever had more people, under preternatural and astonishing circumstances, cast by the providence of God into his more particular care than I have had." Of course, those persons would be most obnoxious to ill-feeling in the community, who were known, as he says of himself, in the foregoing sentence, to have most intimacy with, and influence over, the accusers. For this reason, Cotton Mather was the special object of resentment. No wonder that he sometimes bewails, and sometimes berates, the storm of angry passions raging around. A very bitter feeling pervaded the country, grounded on the conviction that there was "a respect to persons," and a connivance, in behalf of some, by those managing the affair. The public was shocked by having such persons as the Rev. Samuel Willard, Mrs. Hale of Beverly, and the Lady of the Governor, cried out upon by the "afflicted children;" and the commotion was heightened by a cross-current of indignant enquiries: "Why, as these persons are accused, are they not arrested and imprisoned?" Mather alludes, in frequent passages, to this angry state of feeling, as the following: "It is by our quarrels that we spoil our prayers; and if our humble, zealous, and united prayers are once hindered! Alas, the Philistines of Hell have cut our locks for us; they will then blind us, mock us, ruin us. In truth, I cannot altogether blame it, if people are a little transported, when they conceive all the secular interests of themselves and their families at stake, and yet, at the sight of these heart-burnings, I cannot forbear the exclamation of the sweet-spirited Austin, in his pacificatory epistle to Jerom, on the contest with Ruffin, '_O misera et miseranda conditio!_'"--_Wonders_, 11. There was another evil to which he exposed himself by seeking to have such frequent, private, and confidential intercourse with the afflicted accusers and confessing witches, who professed to have so often seen, associated with, and suffered from, spectral images of the Devil's confederates; which spectral shapes, as was believed, were, after all, the Devil himself. He came under the imputation of what, in Scripture, is pronounced one of the darkest of crimes. The same charge was made to tell against Mr. Parris, helping effectually to remove him from the ministry at Salem Village. _Leviticus_, xx., 6. "And the soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards, to go a whoring after them, I will set my face against that soul, and will cut him off from among his people." _1 Chronicles_, x., 13. "So Saul died for his transgression, which he committed against the Lord, even against the word of the Lord, which he kept not; and also, for asking counsel of one that had a familiar spirit, to inquire of it, and inquired not of the Lord, therefore he slew him." For having so much to do with persons professing to suffer from, and from others confessing to have committed, the sin of witchcraft, Mather became the object of a scathing rebuke in the letter of Brattle, in a passage I shall quote, in another connection. Such, then, so far as I can gather, was Cotton Mather's plan for the management of witchcraft investigations; such its impracticability; and such the dangerous and injurious consequences to himself, of attempting to put it into practice. He never fully divulged it; but, in the _Advice_ of the Ministers and various other writings, endeavored to pave the way for it. All the expressions, in that document and elsewhere, which have deceived the Reviewer and others into the notion that he was opposed to the admission of spectre evidence, at the trials, were used as arguments to persuade "authority" not to receive that species of evidence, in open Court, but to refer it to him, in the first instance, to be managed by him with exquisite caution and discretion, and, thereby avoid inconveniences and promote good results; and when he could not subdue the difficulties of the case, to deliver back the obdurate and unrepentant, to the Court, to be proceeded against in the ordinary course of law. With this view, he has much to say that indicates a tender regard to the prisoners. It is true that the scheme, if adopted, would have given him absolute power over the community, and, for this reason, may have had attraction. But, I doubt not, that he cherished it from benevolent feelings also. He thought that he might, in that way, do great good. But it could not be carried into effect. It was seen, at once, by all men, who had any sense left, to be utterly impracticable, and had to be abandoned. That being settled and disposed of, he went into the prosecutions without misgivings, earnestly and vehemently sustaining the Court, in all things, spectre evidence included, as remains to be shown. VIII. COTTON MATHER AND SPECTRAL EVIDENCE. I shall continue to draw, at some length, upon Mather's writings, to which I ask the careful attention of the reader. The subject to which they mostly relate, is of much interest, presenting views of a class of topics, holding, for a long period, a mighty sway over the human mind. In his _Life of Phips_, written in 1697, and constituting the concluding part of the Second Book of the _Magnalia_, he gives a general account of what had transpired, in the preliminary examinations at Salem, before the arrival of Sir William, at Boston. In it, he spreads out, with considerable fullness, what had been brought before the Magistrates, consisting mainly of spectral testimony; and narrates the appearances and doings of spectres assaulting the "afflicted children," not as mere matters alleged, but as facts. It is true that he appears as a narrator; yet, in the manner and tenor of his statement, he cannot but be considered as endorsing the spectral evidence. Speaking of the examining Magistrates, and saying that it is "now," that is, in 1697, "generally thought they went out of the way," he expresses himself as follows: "The afflicted people vehemently accused several persons, in several places, that the _spectres_ which afflicted them, did exactly resemble _them_; until the importunity of the accusations did provoke the Magistrates to examine them. When many of the accused came upon their examination, it was found, that the demons, then a thousand ways abusing of the poor afflicted people, had with a marvellous exactness represented them; yea, it was found that many of the accused, but casting their eye upon the afflicted, the afflicted, though their faces were never so much another way, would fall down and lie in a sort of a swoon, wherein they would continue, whatever hands were laid upon them, until the hands of the accused came to touch them, and then they would revive immediately: and it was found, that various kinds of natural actions, done by many of the accused in or to their own bodies, as leaning, bending, turning awry, or squeezing their hands, or the like, were presently attended with the like things preternaturally done upon the bodies of the afflicted, though they were so far asunder, that the afflicted could not at all observe the accused."--_Magnalia_, Book II., p. 61. Indeed, throughout his account of the appearances and occurrences, at the examinations before the committing Magistrates, it must be allowed that he exposed a decided bias, in his own mind, to the belief and reception of the spectral evidence. He commences that account in these words: "Some scores of people, first about Salem, the centre and first-born of all the towns in the Colony, and afterwards in several other places, were arrested with many preternatural vexations upon their bodies, and a variety of cruel torments, which were evidently inflicted from the demons of the invisible world. The people that were infected and infested with such Demons, in a few days time, arrived at such a refining alteration upon their eyes, that they could see their tormentors; they saw a Devil of a little stature and of a tawny color, attended still with spectres that appeared in more human circumstances."--_Page 60._ And he concludes it as follows: "Flashy people may burlesque these things, but when hundreds of the most sober people in a country, where they have as much mother-wit certainly as the rest of mankind, know them to be _true_, nothing but the absurd and froward spirit of Sadduceeism can question them. I have not yet mentioned so much as one thing, that will not be justified, if it be required, by the oaths of more considerate persons, than any that can ridicule these odd phenomena."--_Page 61._ When he comes to the conclusion of the affair, and mentions the general pardon of the convicted and accused, he says: "there fell out several strange things that caused the spirit of the country to run as vehemently upon the acquitting of all the accused, as it had, by mistake, ran at first upon the condemning of them." "In fine, the last Courts that sate upon this thorny business, finding that it was impossible to penetrate into the whole meaning of the things that had happened, and that so many unsearchable cheats were interwoven into the conclusion of a mysterious business, which perhaps had not crept thereinto at the beginning of it, they cleared the accused as fast as they tried them." But, even then, Mather could not wholly disengage his mind from the "mistake." "More than twice twenty," he says, in connection with the fact that the confessions had been receded from, "had made such voluntary, and harmonious, and uncontrollable confessions, that if they were all sham, there was therein the greatest violation, made by the efficacy of the invisible world, upon the rules of understanding human affairs, that was ever seen since God made man upon the earth." In this same work he presents, in condensed shape, the views of the advocates and of the opponents of spectral testimony, without striking the balance between them or avowedly taking sides with either, although it may fairly be observed that the weight he puts into the scale of the former is quite preponderating. From incidental expressions, too, it might be inferred that he was to be classed with the former, as he ascribes to them some "philosophical schemes," in explanation of the phenomena of witchcraft, that look like his notion of the "Plastic spirit of the world." Another incidental remark seems to point to Increase Mather, as to be classed with the latter, as follows: "Though against some of them that were tried, there came in so much other evidence of their diabolical compacts, that some of the most judicious, and yet vehement, opposers of the notions then in vogue, publicly declared, _Had they themselves been on the Bench, they could not have acquitted them_; nevertheless, divers were condemned, against whom the chief evidence was founded in the spectral exhibitions." Increase Mather, in the Postscript to his _Cases of Conscience_, says: "I am glad that there is published to the World (by my Son) a _Breviate of the Tryals_ of some who were lately executed, whereby I hope the thinking part of Mankind will be satisfied, that there was more than that which is called _Spectre Evidence_ for the Conviction of the Persons condemned. I was not my self present at any of the Tryals, excepting one, _viz._ that of _George Burroughs_; had I been one of his Judges, I could not have acquitted him: For several Persons did upon Oath testifie, that they saw him do such things as no Man that has not a Devil to be his Familiar could perform." It is observable that Increase Mather does not express or intimate, in this passage, any objection to the introduction of spectral evidence. When we come to consider Cotton Mather's _Breviate_ of the trial of George Burroughs, we shall see how slight and inadequate was what Increase Mather could have heard, _at the Trial_, to prove that Burroughs had exhibited strength which the Devil only could have supplied. The most trivial and impertinent matter was all that was needed, to be added to spectral testimony, to give it fatal effect. The value, by the way, of Increase Mather's averment, that "more than that which is called Spectre Evidence" was adduced against the persons convicted, is somewhat impaired by the admission of Cotton Mather, just before quoted, that "divers were condemned," against whom it was the "chief evidence." In stating the objection, by some, to the admission of spectral evidence, on the ground that the Devil might assume the shape of an innocent person, and if that person was held answerable for the actions of that spectral appearance, it would be in the power of the Devil to convict and destroy any number of innocent and righteous people, and thereby "subvert Government and disband and ruin human society," Cotton Mather gets over the difficulty thus: "And yet God may sometimes suffer such things to evene, that we may know, thereby, how much we are beholden to him, for that restraint which he lays upon the infernal spirits, who would else reduce a world into a chaos." This is a striking instance of the way in which words may be made, not only to cover, but to transform, ideas. A reverent form of language conceals an irreverent conception. The thought is too shocking for plain utterance; but, dressed in the garb of ingenious phraseology, it assumes an aspect that enables it to pass as a devout acknowledgment of a divine mystery. The real meaning, absurd as it is dreadful, to state or think, is that the Heavenly Father sometimes may, not merely permit, but will, the lies of the Devil to mislead tribunals of justice to the shedding of the blood of the righteous, that he may, thereby show how we are beholden to Him, that a like outrage and destruction does not happen to us all. He allows the Devil, by false testimony, to bring about the perpetration of the most horrible wrong. It is a part of the "Rectoral Righteousness of God," that it should be so. What if the Courts do admit the testimony of the Devil in the appearance of a spectre, and, on its strength, consign to death the innocent? It is the will of God, that it should be so. Let that will be done. But however the sentiment deserves to be characterized, it removes the only ground upon which, in that day, spectral evidence was objected to--namely, that it might endanger the innocent. If such was the will of God, the objectors were silenced. In concluding the examination of the question whether Cotton Mather denounced, or countenanced, the admission of spectral testimony--for that is the issue before us--I feel confident that it has been made apparent, that it was not in reference to the _admission_ of such testimony, that he objected to the "principles that some of the Judges had espoused," but to the method in which it should be _handled_ and _managed_. I deny, utterly, that it can be shown that he opposed its _admission_. In none of his public writings did he ever pretend to this. The utmost upon which he ventured, driven to the defensive on this very point, as he was during all the rest of his days, was to say that he was opposed to its "excessive use." Once, indeed, in his private Diary, under that self-delusion which often led him to be blind to the import of his language, contradicting, in one part, what he had said in another part of the same sentence, evidently, as I believe, without any conscious and intentional violation of truth, he makes this statement: "For my own part, I was always afraid of proceeding to convict and condemn any person, as a confederate with afflicting Demons, upon so feeble an evidence as a spectral representation. Accordingly, I ever protested against it, both publicly and privately; and, in my letter to the Judges, I particularly besought them that they would, by no means, admit it; and when a considerable assembly of Ministers gave in their advice about that matter, I not only concurred with them, but it was I who drew it up." This shows how he indulged himself in forms of expression that misled him. His letter to "the Judges" means, I suppose, that written to Richards; and he had so accustomed his mind to the attempt to make the _Advice_ of the Ministers bear this construction, as to deceive himself. That document does not say a word, much less, protest, against the "admission" of that evidence: it was not designed, and was not understood by any, at the time, to have that bearing, but only to urge suggestions of caution, in its use and management. Charity to him requires us to receive his declaration in the Diary as subject to the modifications he himself connects with it, and to mean no more than we find expressed in the letter to Richards and in the _Advice_. But, if he really had deluded himself into the idea that he had protested against the _admission_ of spectral evidence, he has not succeeded, probably, in deluding any other persons than his son Samuel, who repeated the language of the Diary, and our Reviewer. The question, I finally repeat, is as to the admission of that species of evidence, _at all_, in any stage, in any form, to any extent. Cotton Mather never, in any public writing, "denounced the admission" of it, never advised its absolute exclusion; but, on the contrary recognised it as a ground of "presumption." Increase Mather stated that the "Devil's accusations," which he considered spectral evidence really to be, "may be so far regarded as to cause an enquiry into the truth of things." These are the facts of history, and not to be moved from their foundation in the public record of that day. There is no reason to doubt that all the Ministers, in the early stages of the delusion, concurred in these views. All partook of the "awe," mentioned by Mather, which filled the minds of Juries, Judges, and the people, whenever this kind of testimony was introduced. No matter how nor when, whether as "presumption" to build other evidence upon or as a cause for further "enquiry," nothing could stand against it. Character, reason, common sense, were swept away. So long as it was suffered to come in, any how, or to be credited at all, the horrid fanaticism and its horrible consequences continued. When it was wholly excluded, the reign of terror and of death ceased. IX. COTTON MATHER AND THE PRELIMINARY EXAMINATIONS. JOHN PROCTOR. GEORGE BURROUGHS. The spectral evidence was admitted; and the examinations and trials went on. The question now arises, what was Cotton Mather's attitude towards them? The scrutiny as to the meaning of his words is exhausted; and now we are to interpret his actions. They speak louder and clearer than words. Let us, in the first place, make the proper distinction between the Examinations, on the arrest of the prisoners and leading to their commitment, and the Trials. The first Warrants were issued on the twenty-ninth of February, 1692; and the parties arrested were brought before the Magistrates the next day. Arrests and Examinations occurred, at short intervals, during three months, when the first trial was had; and they were continued, from time to time, long after, while the Special Court was in operation. They were, in some respects, more important than the Trials. Almost all the evidence, finally adduced before the Jury, was taken by the examining Magistrates; and being mostly in the form of carefully written depositions, it was simply reproduced, and sworn to, before the Court. Further, as no Counsel was allowed the Prisoners, the Trials were quite summary affairs. Hutchinson says, no difficulty was experienced; and the results were quickly reached, in every case but that of Rebecca Nurse. These two stages in the proceedings became confounded in the public apprehension, and have been borne down by tradition, indiscriminately, under the name of Trials. It was the succession, at brief intervals, through a long period, of these Examinations, that wrought the great excitement through the country, which met Phips on his arrival; and which is so graphically described by Cotton Mather, as a "dreadful ferment." He says he was not present at any of the Trials. Was he present at any of the Examinations? The considerations that belong to the solution of this question are the following: When the special interest he must have taken in them is brought to mind, from the turn of his prevalent thoughts and speculations, exhibited in all his writings, and from the propensity he ever manifested to put himself in a position to observe and study such things, it may be supposed he would not have foregone opportunities like those presented in the scenes before the Magistrates. While all other people, Ministers especially, were flocking to them, it is difficult to conclude that he held back. That he attended some of them is, perhaps, to be inferred from the distinctive character of his language that he never attended a _Trial_. The description given, in his _Life of Phips_, of what was exhibited and declared by the "afflicted children," at the Examinations, exhibits a minuteness and vividness, seeming to have come from an eye-witness; but there is not a particular word or syllable, I think, in the account, from which an inference, either way, can be drawn whether, or not, he was present at them, personally. This is observable, I repeat, inasmuch as he was careful to say that he was _not_ present at the _Trials_. The Examinations, being of a character to arrest universal attention, and from the extraordinary nature of their incidents, as viewed by that generation, having attractions, all but irresistible, it is not surprising that, as incidentally appears, Magistrates and Ministers came to them, from all quarters. No local occurrences, in the history of this country, ever awakened such a deep, awe-inspiring, and amazed interest. It can hardly be doubted that he was attracted to them. Can any other inference be drawn from the passage already quoted, from his Diary, that he felt called, "as a herald of the Lord's Kingdom, now approaching," to give personal attendance, in "the horrible enchantments and possessions broke forth at Salem Village?" There was a large concourse of Magistrates and Ministers, particularly, on the twenty-fourth of March, when Deodat Lawson preached his famous Sermon, after the Examination of Rebecca Nurse; on the eleventh of April, when the Governor and Council themselves conducted the Examination of John Proctor and others; and, on the ninth of May, when Stoughton, from Dorchester, and Sewall, from Boston, sat with the local Magistrates, and the Rev. George Burroughs was brought before them. It is strange, indeed, if Mather was not present, especially on the last occasion; and it may appear, as we advance, that it is almost due to his reputation to suppose that he was there, and thus became qualified and authorized to pass the judgment he afterwards did. Local tradition, of less value, in some respects, for reasons given in my book, in reference to this affair than most others, but still of much weight, has identified Cotton Mather with these scenes. The family, of which John Proctor was the head, has continued to this day in the occupancy of his lands. Always respectable in their social position, they have perpetuated his marked traits of intellect and character. They have been strong men, as the phrase is, in their day, of each generation; and have constantly cherished in honor the memory of their noble progenitor, who bravely breasted, in defence of his wife, the fierce fanaticism of his age, and fell a victim to its fury and his own manly fidelity and integrity. They have preserved, as much as any family, a knowledge of the great tragedy; and it has been a tradition among them that Cotton Mather took an active part in the prosecution of Proctor. The representative of the family, in our day, a man of vigorous faculties, of liberal education, academical and legal, and much interested in antiquarian and genealogical enquiries, John W. Proctor, presided at the Centennial Celebration, in Danvers, on the fifteenth of June, 1852; and in his Address, expressed, no doubt, a transmitted sentiment--although, as has generally been done, confounding the Examinations with the Trials--in stating that Cotton Mather rendered himself conspicuous in the proceedings against his ancestor. Cotton Mather was the leading champion of the Judges. In his Diary, he says: "I saw, in most of the Judges, a most charming instance of prudence and patience; and I know the exemplary prayer and anguish of soul, wherewith they had sought the direction of heaven, above most other people; whom I generally saw enchanted into a raging, railing, scandalous and unreasonable disposition, as the distress increased upon us. For this cause, _though I could not allow the principles that some of the Judges had espoused_, yet I could not but speak honorably of their persons, on all occasions; and my compassion upon the sight of their difficulties, raised by _my journeys to Salem_, the chief seat of those diabolical vexations, caused me yet more to do so." How, as he had not been present at any of the Trials, could he have given this commendation of the bearing of the Judges, based, as he says, upon what he had witnessed in visits to Salem? I can think of but one way in which his statements can be reconciled. Five of the eight Judges (Saltonstall's seat being vacant) Stoughton, Sewall, Gedney, Corwin and Hathorne, severally, at different times, sat as Magistrates, at the Examinations, which occasions were accompanied with vexations and perplexities, calling for prudence and patience, much more than the Trials. It is due, therefore, to Mather to suppose that he had frequented the Examinations, and, thus acquired a right to speak of the deportment of the Judges, "upon the _sight_ of their difficulties." Much of the evidence given by the "afflicted children," at the Examinations, can hardly be accounted for except as drawn from ideas suggested by Mather, on the spot, so as to reach their ears. In the testimony of Susannah Sheldon, against John Willard, on the ninth of May, is the following singular statement: "There appeared to me a Shining White man." She represents it as a good and friendly angel, or spirit, accompanied by another "angel from Heaven," protecting her against the spectre of John Willard. Prefixed to the London Edition of the _Cases of Conscience_, printed in 1862, is a narrative, by Deodat Lawson, of some remarkable things he saw and heard, connected with the witchcraft transactions at Salem Village. In it, is the following statement: "The first of April, Mercy Lewis saw in her fit, a white man, and was with him in a glorious place, which had no candles nor sun, yet was full of light and brightness; where was a great multitude in white glittering robes; and they sung the Song in _Revelation_, v., 9, and the one hundred and tenth Psalm, and the one hundred and forty-ninth Psalm; and said with herself, 'How long shall I stay here?' 'Let me be along with you!' She was loth to leave the place; and grieved that she could tarry no longer. This White man hath appeared several times to some of them, and given them notice how long it should be before they had another fit, which was, some times, a day, or day and half, or more or less. It hath fallen out accordingly." In the case of Margaret Rule, in Boston, the year after the Salem Delusion, of which it is not to be questioned that Mather had the management, this same "_White_" Spirit is made to figure; and also, in another instance. Mather alludes to the "glorious and signal deliverance of that poor damsel," Mercy Short, six months before. "Indeed," says he, "Margaret's case was, in several points, less remarkable than Mercy's; and in some other things the entertainment did a little vary." Margaret, Mercy, and the "afflicted children" at Salem Village, all had their "White Angel," as thus stated by Mather: "Not only in the Swedish, but also in the Salem Witchcraft, the enchanted people have talked much of a White Spirit, from whence they received marvellous assistances in their miseries. What lately befell Mercy Short, from the communications of such a Spirit, hath been the just wonder of us all; but by such a Spirit was Margaret Rule now also visited. She says that she could never see his face; but that she had a frequent view of his bright, shining and glorious garments; he stood by her bed-side, continually, heartening and comforting her, and counselling her to maintain her faith and hope in God, and never comply with the temptations of her adversaries."--_Calef_, 3, 8. This appearance of the "White and Shining," Spirit, or "White Angel," exercising a good and friendly influence, was entirely out of the line of ordinary spectral manifestations; constituted a speciality in the cases mentioned; and seems to have originated in the same source. Let it, then, be considered that Cotton Mather's favorite precedent, which was urged upon Sir William Phips, and which Mather brought to the notice of Richards, and was so fond of citing in his writings, had a "White Angel." In his account of the "most horrid outrage, committed in Sweedland by Devils, by the help of witches," we find the following: "Some of the children talked much of a White Angel, which did use to forbid them, what the Devil had bid them to do, and assure them that these things would not last long; but that what had been done was permitted for the wickedness of the people. This White Angel would sometimes rescue the children, from going in with the witches."--_Wonders_, 50. Mr. Hale also notices this feature of the Salem Trials--that the witnesses swore to "representations of heavenly beauty, white men." Mather brought the story of this witchcraft "in Sweedland," before the public, in America; he had the book that contained it; and was active in giving it circulation. There can be little doubt that he was the channel through which it found its way to the girls in the hamlet of Salem Village. He was, it is evident, intimate with Parris. How far the latter received his ideas from him, is, _as yet_, unknown. That they were involved in the same responsibility is clear from the fact that Parris fell back upon him for protection, and relied upon him, as his champion, throughout his controversy with his people, occasioned by the witchcraft transactions. When these considerations are duly weighed, in connection with his language in the passage of his Diary, just quoted--"I saw a most charming instance of prudence and patience" in the Judges: "My compassion upon the sight of their difficulties," "raised by my journeys to Salem, the chief seat of those diabolical vexations"--it seems necessary to infer, that his opportunities of _seeing_ all this, on the occasions of his "journeys to Salem," must have been afforded by attending the Examinations, held by the Magistrates who were also Judges; as it is established, by his own averment, that he never saw them on the Bench of the Court, at the Jury-trials. It is, therefore, rendered certain, by his own language and by all the facts belonging to the subject, that the purpose of his "journeys to Salem" was to attend the Examinations. We are, indeed, shut up to this conclusion. The Examinations were going on from the first of March, far into the Summer of 1692. There is no intimation that either of the Mathers uttered a syllable against the course pursued in them, before or after the middle of May, when the Government passed into their almost exclusive possession. All the way through, spectral evidence was admitted, without restraint or a symptom of misgiving, on their part; and, whether present or absent, they could not but have known all that was going on. Cotton Mather's "_journeys to Salem_," must have been frequent. If only made two or three times, he would have said so, as he speaks of them in an apologetic passage and when trying to represent his agency to have been as little as the truth would allow. The Reviewer states that the journeys were made for another purpose. He states it positively and absolutely. "He made visits to Salem, as we shall presently see, for quite another purpose than that which has been alleged." This language surprised me, as it had wholly escaped my researches; and the surprise was accompanied with pleasure, for I supposed there must be some foundation for the declaration. I looked eagerly for the disclosure about to be made, in some document, now, for the first time, to be brought to light, from "original sources," such as he, in a subsequent passage, informs us, Mr. Longfellow has had access to. Great was my disappointment, to find that the Reviewer, notwithstanding his promise to let us know the "other purpose" of Mather's visits to Salem, has not given us a single syllable of _information_ to that effect, but has endeavored to palm off, upon the readers of the _North American Review_, a pure fiction of his own brain, a mere conjecture, as baseless as it is absurd. He says that Mather made his visits to Salem, as the "spiritual comforter" of John Proctor and John Willard! He further says, in support of this statement, "that Proctor and Willard had been confined several months in the Boston Jail, and there, doubtless, made Mr. Mather's acquaintance, as he was an habitual visitor of the prison." This hardly accounts for "journeys to Salem," during _those_ months. Salem was not exactly in Mr. Mather's way from his house in Boston to the Jail in Boston. As only a few days over four months elapsed between Proctor's being put into the Boston Jail and his execution, deducting the "several months" he spent there, but little time remained, after his transfer to the Salem Jail, for Mather's "journeys to Salem," for the purpose of administering spiritual consolation to him. So far as making his "acquaintance," while in Boston Jail is regarded, upon the same ground it might be affirmed that he was the spiritual adviser of the Prisoners generally; for most of those, who suffered, were in Boston Jail as long as Proctor; and he visited them all alike. The Reviewer adduces not a particle of evidence to prove his absolute statement, nor even to countenance the idea; but, as is his custom, he transforms a conjecture into an established fact. On a bare surmise, he builds an argument, and treats the whole, basis and superstructure, as History. To show, more particularly, how he thus _makes History_, I must follow this matter up a little further. Brattle, in his _Account of the Witchcraft in the County of Essex, 1692_, has this paragraph, after stating that the persons executed "went out of the world, not only with as great protestations, but also with as great shows, of innocency, as men could do:" "They protested their innocency as in the presence of the great God, whom forthwith they were to appear before: they wished, and declared their wish, that their blood might be the last innocent blood shed upon that account. With great affection, they entreated Mr. C. M. to pray with them: they prayed that God would discover what witchcrafts were among us: they forgave their accusers: they spake without reflection on Jury and Judges, for bringing them in guilty and condemning them: [they prayed earnestly for pardon for all _other_ sins, and for an interest in the precious blood of our dear Redeemer:] and seemed to be very sincere, upright, and sensible of their circumstances on all accounts; especially Proctor and Willard, whose whole management of themselves, from the Jail to the Gallows, [and whilst at the Gallows,] was very affecting and melting to the hearts of some considerable spectators, whom I could mention to you:--[but they are executed and so I leave them.]"--_Massachusetts Historical Collections_, I., v., 68. The Reviewer cites this paragraph, omitting the clauses I have placed within brackets, _without any indication of the omissions_. The first of the omitted clauses is a dying declaration of the innocence of the sufferers, as to the crime alleged. The second proves that they "managed themselves" after, as well as before, reaching the Gallows, and to their dying moment--seeming to preclude the idea that their exercises of prayer and preparation were directed or guided by any spiritual adviser. The last is an emphatic and natural expression of Brattle's feelings and judgment on the occasion. The Reviewer follows his citation, thus: "Mr. Brattle mentions no other person than Mr. C. M. as the comforter and friend of the sufferers, especially Proctor and Willard." "In the above statement we trace the character of their spiritual counsellor." "We now see the object of Mr. Mather's visits to Salem." "Would these persons have asked Mr. Mather to be their spiritual comforter, if he had been the agent, as has been alleged, of bringing them into their sad condition?" In other forms of language and other connections, he speaks of Mr. Mather's presence, at these executions, as "the performance of a sad duty to Proctor and Willard," and represents Brattle as calling him "the spiritual adviser of the persons condemned." All this he asserts as proved and admitted fact; and the whole rests upon the foregoing _mutilated_ paragraph of Brattle. Let the reader thoroughly examine and consider that paragraph, and then judge of this Reviewer's claim to establish History. The word "affection," was used much at that time to signify _earnest desire_. "They"--that is, the persons then about to die, namely, the Rev. George Burroughs, an humble, laborious, devoted Minister of the Gospel; John Proctor, the owner of valuable farms and head of a large family; John Willard, a young married man of most respectable connections; George Jacobs, an early settler, land-holder, and a grandfather, of great age, with flowing white locks, sustained, as he walked, by two staffs or crutches; and Martha Carrier, the wife of a farmer in Andover, with a family of children, some of them quite young--"entreated Mr. C. M. to pray with them." Why did they have to "entreat" him, if he had come all the way from Boston for that purpose? They all had Ministers near at hand--Carrier had two Ministers, either or both of whom would have been prompt to come, if persons suffering for the imputed crime of witchcraft had been allowed to have the attendance of "spiritual comforters," at their executions. If Mather had prayed with them, Brattle would have said so. His language is equivalent to a statement, that "Mr. C. M." was reluctant, if he did not absolutely refuse to do it; and the only legitimate inferences from the whole passage are, that the sufferers did their own praying,--from Brattle's account of their dying prayers, they did it well--and that without "spiritual comforter," "adviser," or "friend," in the last dread hour, they were left to the "management of themselves." When the paragraph is taken in connection with the relations of Brattle to Mather, not approving of his course in public affairs, but, at the same time, delicately situated, being associated with him in important public interests and leading circles, the conclusion seems probable that he meant, in an indirect mode of expression, to notice the fact that Mather refused to pray with the sufferers on the occasion. In fact, we know that Nicholas Noyes, who was Proctor's Minister, refused to pray with him, unless he would confess. Mather and Noyes were intimately united by personal and professional ties of friendship and communion, and probably would not run counter to each other, at such a time, and in the presence of such a multitude of Ministers and people. It is to be regarded exclusively as illustrating the shocking character of the whole procedure of the witchcraft prosecutions, and not as a personally harsh or cruel thing, that Noyes or Mather was unwilling to pray with persons, at their public executions, who stood convicted of being confederates of the Devil, and who, refusing to confess, retained that character to the last. Ministers, like them, believing that the convicts were malefactors of a far different and deeper dye than ordinary human crime could impart, rebels against God, apostates from Christ, sons of Belial, recruits of the Devil's army, sworn in allegiance to his Kingdom, baptized into his church, beyond the reach of hope and prayer, could hardly be expected to pray _with_ them. To _join_ them in prayer was impossible. To go through the forms of united prayer would have been incongruous with the occasion, and not more inconsistent with the convictions of the Ministers, than repugnant to the conscious innocence and natural sensibilities of the sufferers. Condemned, unconfessing, unrepentant witches might be prayed _for_, or _at_, but not _with_. The superior greatness of mind of Burroughs and his fellow sufferers, the true spirit of Christian forgiveness elevating them above a sense of the errors and wrongs of which they were the victims, are beautifully and gloriously shown in their earnestly wishing and entreating Noyes and Mather to pray with them. They pitied their delusion, and were desirous, in that last hour, to regard them and all others as their brethren, and bow with them before the Father of all. The request they made of Christian Ministers, who, at the moment, regarded them as in league with the Devil, might not be exactly logical; a failure to comply with it is not a just matter of reproach; but the fact that it was repeated with earnestness, "entreated with affection," shows that the last pulsations of their hearts were quickened by a holy and heavenly Love. The Reviewer asks: "Were those five persons executed that day without any spiritual adviser?" There is no evidence, I think, to show that a Minister ever accompanied, in that character, persons convicted of witchcraft, at the place of execution. All that can be gathered from Brattle's account is, that, on the occasion to which he is referring, the sufferers _themselves_ offered public prayers. We know that Martha Corey, at a subsequent execution, pronounced a prayer that made a deep impression on the assembled multitude. Mr. Burroughs's prayer is particularly spoken of. So, also, in England, when the Reverend Mr. Lewis, an Episcopal clergyman, eighty years of age, and who, for fifty years, had been Vicar of Brandeston, in the County of Suffolk, was executed for alleged witchcraft, the venerable man read his own funeral service, according to the forms of his Church, "committing his own body to the ground, in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life." This whole story of the spiritual relation between Mather and Proctor is a bare fiction, entirely in conflict with all tradition and all probability, without a shadow of support in any document adduced by the Reviewer; and yet he would have it received as an established fact, and incorporated, as such, in history. Liberties, like this, cannot be allowed. Sewall's Diary, at the date of the nineteenth of August, 1692, has this entry: "This day George Burrough, John Willard, John Proctor, Martha Carrier, and George Jacobs were executed at Salem, a very great number of spectators being present. Mr. Cotton Mather was there, Mr. Sims, Hale, Noyes, Cheever, etc. All of them said they were innocent, Carrier and all. Mr. Mather says they all died by a righteous sentence. Mr. Burrough, by his Speech, Prayer, protestation of his innocence, did much move unthinking persons, which occasioned the speaking hardly concerning his being executed." It is quite remarkable that Cotton Mather should have gone directly home to Boston, after the execution, and made himself noticeable by proclaiming such a harsh sentiment against _all_ the sufferers, if he had just been performing friendly offices to them, as "spiritual adviser, counsellor, and comforter." Clergymen, called to such melancholy and affecting functions, do not usually emerge from them in the frame of mind exhibited in the language ascribed to Mather, by Sewall. It shows, at any rate, that Mather felt sure that Proctor went out of the world, an unrepenting, unconfessing wizard, and, therefore, not a fit subject for a Christian Minister to unite with in prayer. One other remark, by the way. The account Sewall gives of the impression made by Burroughs, on the spectators, now first brought to light, in print, is singularly confirmatory of what Calef says on the subject. My chief purpose, however, in citing this passage from Sewall's Diary, is this. Mather was not present at the Trial of Burroughs. If he was not present at his Examination before the Magistrates, how could he have spoken, as he did, of the righteousness of his sentence? There had been no Report or publication, in any way, of the evidence; and he could only have received a competent knowledge of it from personal presence, on one or the other of those occasions. He could not have been justified in so confident and absolute a judgment, by mere hearsay. If that had been the source of his information, he would have modified his language accordingly. There is one other item to be considered, in treating the question of Mather's connection with the Examinations of the Prisoners, before the Magistrates. When Proctor was awaiting his trial, during the short period, previous to that event, that he was in the Salem Jail, he had addressed a letter to "Mr. Mather, Mr. Allen, Mr. Moody, Mr. Willard and Mr. Baily," all Ministers, begging them to intercede, in behalf of himself and fellow-prisoners, to secure to them better treatment, especially a fairer trial than they could have in Salem, where such a violent excitement had been wrought up against them. From the character of the letter, it is evident that it was addressed to them in the hope and belief that they were accessible, to such an appeal. But one of the Mathers is named. They were associate Ministers of the same Church. Although the father was President of the College at Cambridge, he resided in Boston, and was in the active exercise of his ministry there. The question is, Which of them is meant? In my book, I expressed the opinion that it was Increase, the father. The Reviewer says it was Cotton, the son. It is a fair question; and every person can form a judgment upon it. The other persons named, comprising the rest of the Ministers then connected with the Boston Churches, are severally, more or less, indicated by what has come to us, as not having gone to extremes, in support of the witchcraft prosecutions. Increase Mather was commonly regarded, upon whatever grounds, as not going so far as his son, in that direction. The name, "Mr. Mather," heads the list. From his standing, as presiding over the College and the Clergy, it was proper to give him this position. His age and seniority of settlement, also entitled him to it. Usage, and all general considerations of propriety, require us to assume that by "Mr. Mather," the _elder_ is meant. Cotton Mather, being the youngest of the Boston Ministers, would not be likely to be the first named, in such a list. Besides, he was considered, as he himself complains, as the "doer of all the hard things, that were done, in the prosecution of the witchcraft." Whoever concludes that Increase Mather was the person, in Proctor's mind, will appreciate the fact that Cotton Mather is omitted in the list. It proves that Proctor considered him beyond the reach of all appeals, in behalf of accused persons; and tends to confirm the tradition, in the family, that his course towards Proctor, when under examination, either before the Magistrates or in Court, had indicated a fixed and absolute prejudice or conviction against him. This Letter of Proctor's, printed in my book, [_ii., 310_] utterly disperses the visionary fabric of the Reviewer's fancy, that Cotton Mather was his "spiritual adviser," counselling him in frequent visits to the Salem Jail. It denounces, in unreserved language, "the Magistrates, Ministers, Juries," as under the "delusion of the Devil, which we can term no other, by reason we know, in our own consciences, we are all innocent persons;" and is couched in a bold, outspoken and trenchant style, that would have shocked and incensed Cotton Mather to the highest possible degree. It is absolutely certain, that if Cotton Mather had been Proctor's "friend and counsellor," a more prudent and cautious tone and style would have been given to the whole document. In concluding the considerations that render it probable that Cotton Mather had much to do with the Examinations, it may be said, in general, that he vindicates the course taken at them, in language that seems to identify himself with them, and to prove that he could not have been opposed to the methods used in them. X. COTTON MATHER AND THE WITCHCRAFT TRIALS. THE EXECUTIONS. I now proceed to examine Cotton Mather's connection with the Trials at Salem. It is fully admitted that he did not personally attend any of them. His averment to this effect does not allow the supposition that he could have deceived himself, on such a point. In his letter to Richards, as has been seen, he expressed his great disappointment in not being well enough to accompany him to this first Session of the Special Court; and the tenor of the passage proves that he had fully expected and designed to be present, at the trials, generally. Whether the same bodily indisposition continued to forbid his attendance at its successive adjournments, we cannot obtain information. The first point of connection I can find between him and the trials, is brought to view in a meeting of certain Ministers, after executions had taken place, and while trials were pending. Increase Mather, in his _Cases of Conscience_, has the following: "As for the judgment of the Elders in New England, so far as I can learn, they do generally concur with Mr. Perkins and Mr. Bernard. This I know, that, at a meeting of Ministers at Cambridge, August 1, 1692, where were present seven Elders, besides the President of the College, the question then discoursed on, was, whether the Devil may not sometimes have a permission to represent an innocent person as tormenting such as are under diabolical molestations? The answer, which they all concurred in, was in these words, viz. 'That the Devil may sometimes have a permission to represent an innocent person as tormenting such as are under diabolical molestations; but that such things are rare and extraordinary, especially when such matters come before civil judicatures'; and that some of the most eminent Ministers of the land, who were not at that meeting, are of the same judgment, I am assured. And I am also sure that, in cases of this nature, the Priest's lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth. _Mal._, 2, 7." What was meant by the quotation from Malachi is left to conjecture. It looks like the notion I have supposed Cotton Mather to have, more or less, cherished, at different times--to have such cases committed to the confidential custody and management of one or more Ministers. Whether Cotton Mather, as well as his father, was at this meeting, is not stated. The expressions "rare and extraordinary" and "sometimes have a permission," and the general style of the language, are like his. At any rate, in referring to the meeting, in his _Wonders of the Invisible World_, he speaks of the Ministers present "as very pious and learned;" says that they uttered the prevailing sense of others "eminently cautious and judicious;" and declares that they "have both argument and history to countenance them in it." It is to be noticed, that this opinion of the Ministers, given on the first of August, if it did not authorize the admission, without reserve or limitation, of spectral evidence, in judicial proceedings, reduces the objection to it to an almost inappreciable point. Observe the date. Already six women, heads of families, many of them of respectable positions in society, all in advanced life, one or two quite aged, and two, at least, of the most eminent Christian character, had suffered death, wholly from spectral evidence, that is, no other testimony was brought against them, as all admit, that could, even then, have convicted them. Twelve days had elapsed since five of them had been executed; in four more days, six others were to be brought to trial, among them the Rev. George Burroughs; and the Ministers pass a vote, under the lead of Increase Mather, and with the express approval of Cotton Mather, that there is very little danger of innocent people suffering, in judicial proceedings, from spectral evidence. Let us hear no more that the Clergy of New England accepted the doctrines of those writers who had "declared against the admission of spectral testimony;" that "the Magistrates rejected those doctrines;" that "all the evils at Salem, grew out of the position taken by the Magistrates;" and that "it had been well with the twenty victims at Salem, if the Ministers of the Colony, instead of the Lawyers, had determined their fate." The Clergy of New England did, indeed, entertain great regard for the authority of certain writers, who were considered as, more or less, discrediting spectral evidence. The Mathers professed to concur with them in that judgment; but the ground taken at the meeting on the first of August, as above stated, was, it must be allowed, inconsistent with it. The passages I have given, and shall give, from the writings of Cotton Mather, will illustrate the elaborate ingenuity he displayed in trying to reconcile a respect for the said writers with the admission of that species of evidence, to an extent they were considered as disallowing. I am indebted to George H. Moore, LL.D., of New York city, for the following important document. John Foster was, at its date, a member of the Council. Hutchinson, who was his grandson, speaks of him [_History, ii., 21_] as a "merchant of Boston of the first rank," "who had a great share in the management of affairs from 1689 to 1692." In the latter year, he was raised to the Council Board, being named as such in the new Charter; and held his seat, by annual elections, to the close of his life, in 1710. He seems to have belonged to the Church of the Mathers, as the father and son each preached and printed a Sermon on the occasion of his death. _Autograph Letter of COTTON MATHER, on Witchcraft, presented to the Literary and Historical Society, by the Honorable Chief-justice SEWELL._[3] 17^th 6^m, 1692. "S^r: "You would know whether I still retain my opinion about y^e horrible Witchcrafts among us, and I acknowledge that I do. "I do still Think That when there is no further Evidence against a person but only This, That a Spectre in their shape does afflict a neighbour, that Evidence is not enough to convict y^e * * * of Witchcraft. "That the Divels have a natural power w^ch makes them capable of exhibiting what shape they please I suppose nobody doubts, and I have no absolute promise of God that they shall not exhibit _mine_. "It is the opinion generally of all protestant writers that y^e Divel may thus abuse y^e innocent, yea, tis y^e confession of some popish ones. And o^r Honorable Judges are so eminent for their Justice, Wisdom, & Goodness that whatever their own particular sense may bee, yett they will not proceed capitally against any, upon a principle contested with great odds on y^e other side in y^e Learned and Godly world. "_Nevertheless, a very great use is to bee made of y^e Spectral impression upon y^e sufferers. They Justly Introduce, and Determine, an Enquiry into y^e circumstances of y^e person accused; and they strengthen other presumptions._ "_When so much use is made of those Things, I believe y^e use for w^ch y^e Great God intends y^m is made._ And accordingly you see that y^e Eccellent Judges have had such an Encouraging presence of God with them, as that scarce any, if at all any, have been Tried before them, against whom God has not strangely sent in other, & more Humane & most convincing Testimonies. "If any persons have been condemned, about whom any of y^e Judges, are not easy in their minds, that y^e Evidence against them, has been satisfactory, it would certainly bee for y^e glory of the whole Transaction to give that person a Reprieve. "It would make all matters easier if at least Bail were taken for people Accused only by y^e invisible tormentors of y^e poor sufferers and not Blemished by any further Grounds of suspicion against them. "The odd Effects produced upon the sufferers by y^e look or touch of the accused are things wherein y^e Divels may as much Impose upon some Harmless people as by the Representacôn of their shapes. "My notion of these matters is this. A Suspected and unlawful com'union with a Familiar Spirit, is the Thing enquired after. The communion on the _Divel's_ part, may bee proved, while, for ought I can say, The _man_ may bee Innocent; the Divel may impudently Impose his com'union upon some that care not for his company. But if the com'union on y^e man's part bee proved, then the Business is done. "I am suspicious Lest y^e Divel may at some time or other, serve us a trick by his constancy for a long while in one way of Dealing. Wee may find the Divel using one constant course in Nineteen several Actions, and yett hee bee too hard for us at last, if wee thence make a Rule to form an Infallible Judgement of a Twentieth. It is o^r singular Happiness That wee are blessed with Judges who are Aware of this Danger. "For my own part if the Holy God should permitt such a Terrible calamity to befal myself as that a Spectre in my Shape should so molest my neighbourhood, as that they can have no quiet, altho' there should be no other Evidence against me, I should very patiently submit unto a Judgement of _Transportation_, and all reasonable men would count o^r Judges to Act, as they are like y^e Fathers of y^e public, in such a Judgment. What if such a Thing should be ordered for those whose Guilt is more Dubious, and uncertain, whose presence y^s perpetuates y^e miseries of o^r sufferers? They would cleanse y^e Land of Witchcrafts, and yett also prevent y^e shedding of Innocent Blood, whereof some are so apprehensive of Hazard. If o^r Judges want any Good Bottom, to act thus upon, You know, that besides y^e usual power of Govern^es, to Relax many Judgments of Death, o^r General Court can soon provide a law. "S^r, "You see y^e Incoherency of my Thoughts but I hope, you will also some Reasonableness in those Thoughts. "In the year 1645, a Vast Number of persons in y^e county of _Suffolk_ were apprehended, as Guilty of Witchcraft; whereof, some confessed. The parlament granted a special commission of _Oyer & Terminer_ for y^e Trial of those Witches; in w^ch com'ission, there were a famous Divine or two, M^r _Fariclough_ particularly inserted. That Eccellent man did preach two sermons to y^e Court, before his first sitting on y^e Bench: Wherein having first proved the Existence of Witches, hee afterwards showed y^e Evil of Endeavouring y^e Conviction of any upon Defective Evidence. The Sermon had the Effect that none were Condemned, who could bee saved w^thout an Express Breach of y^e Law; & then tho' 'twas possible some Guilty did Escape, yett the troubles of those places, were, I think Extinguished. "O^r case is Extraordinary. And so, you and others will pardon y^e Extraordinary Liberty I take to address You on this occasion. But after all, I Entreat you, that whatever you do, you Strengthen y^e Hands of o^r Honourable Judges in y^e Great work before y^m. They are persons, for whom no man living has a greater veneration, than "S^r, Your Servant C. MATHER. "For the Honourable JOHN FOSTER, ESQ." This letter must be considered, I think, as settling the question. It was written two days before the execution of Burroughs, Proctor, and others. It entirely disposes of the assertions of the Reviewer, that Mather "denounced" the "admission" of spectral testimony, and demonstrates the truth of the positions, taken in this article, that he authorized fully its admission, as affording occasion of enquiry and matter of presumption, sufficient, if reinforced by other evidence, to justify conviction. The sentences I have italicised leave no further room for discussion. The language in which the Judges and their conduct of the Trials are spoken of, could not have been stronger. The reference to the course taken in England, in 1645, sheds light upon the suggestions I have made, as to Mather's notion, that one or more Ministers--"a famous Divine or two,"--ought to have been connected, "by authority," with the Court of Oyer and Terminer, in the management of the cases. The idea thrown out, as to Transportation, could hardly, it would seem, but have been apparent to a reflecting person, as utterly impracticable. No convicts or parties under indictment or arrest for the crime of witchcraft, could have been shipped off to any other part of the British dominions. A vessel, with persons on board, with such a stamp upon them, would have been everywhere repelled with as much vehemence and panic, as if freighted with the yellow fever, small-pox, or plague. If the unhappy creatures she bore beneath her hatches, should have been landed in any other part of the then called Christian or civilized world, stigmatized with the charge of witchcraft, they would have met with the halter or the fagot; and scarcely have fared better, if cast upon any savage shore. We have seen how our Reviewer _makes_, let us now see how he _unmakes_, history. Robert Calef, in his book entitled _More Wonders of the Invisible World_, Part V., under the head of "An impartial account of the most memorable matters of fact, touching the supposed Witchcraft in New England," [_p. 103_,] says: "Mr. Burroughs was carried in a cart, with the others, through the streets of Salem to execution. When he was upon the ladder, he made a speech for the clearing of his innocency, with such solemn and serious expressions, as were to the admiration of all present; his prayer (which he concluded by repeating the Lord's prayer) was so well worded, and uttered with such composedness, and such (at least seeming) fervency of spirit, as was very affecting, and drew tears from many, so that it seemed to some that the spectators would hinder the execution. The accusers said the black man stood and dictated to him. As soon as he was turned off, Mr. Cotton Mather, being mounted upon a horse, addressed himself to the people, partly to declare that he (Burroughs) was no ordained Minister, and partly to possess the people of his guilt, saying that the Devil has often been transformed into an Angel of Light; and this somewhat appeased the people; and the executions went on. When he was cut down, he was dragged by the halter to a hole, or grave, between the rocks, about two feet deep, his shirt and breeches being pulled off, and an old pair of trowsers of one executed, put on his lower parts; he was so put in, together with Willard and Carrier, that one of his hands and his chin, and a foot of one of them, were left uncovered." The Reviewer undertakes to set aside this statement; to erase it altogether from the record; and to throw it from the belief and memory of mankind. But this cannot be done, but by an arbitrary process, that would wipe out all the facts of all history, and leave the whole Past an utter blank. If any record has passed the final ordeal, this has. It is beyond the reach of denial; and no power on earth can start the solid foundation on which it stands. It consists of distinct, plainly stated averments, which, as a whole, or severally, if not true, and known to be true, might have been denied, or questioned, at the time. Not disputed, nor controverted, then, it never can be. If not true to the letter, so far as Cotton Mather is concerned, hundreds, nay thousands, were at hand, who would have contradicted it. Certificates without number, like that of John Goodwin, would have been procured to invalidate it. Consisting of specifications, in detail, if there had been in it the minutest item that could have admitted contradiction, it would have been seized upon, and used with the utmost eagerness to break the force of the statement. It was printed at London, in 1700, in a volume accredited there, and immediately put into circulation here, twenty-eight years before the death of Mather. He had a copy of it, now in possession of the Massachusetts Historical Society, and wrote on the inside of the front cover, "My desire is, that mine adversary had written a book," etc. His father, the President of Harvard University, had a copy; for the book was burned in the College-square. Everything contributed to call universal attention to it. Its author was known, avowed, and his name printed on the title page; he lived in the same town with Mather; and was in all respects a responsible man. No attempt was made, at the time, nor at any time, until now, to overthrow the statement or disprove any of its specifications. Let us see how the Reviewer undertakes to controvert it. As to Mather's being on horseback, the argument seems to be, that it was customary, then, for people to travel in that way! The harangue to the people to prevail upon them to pay no heed to the composed, devout, and forgiving deportment of the sufferers, because the Devil often appeared as an Angel of Light, sounded strangely from one who had attended the prisoners as their "spiritual comforter and friend." It was a queer conclusion of his services of consolation and pastoral offices, to proclaim to the crowd, that the truly Christian expressions of the persons in his charge were all a diabolical sham. One would have thought, if he accompanied them in the capacity alleged, he would have dismounted before ascending the hill, and tenderly waited upon them, side by side, holding them by the hand and sustaining them by his arm, as they approached the fatal ladder; and that his last benedictions, upon their departing souls, would have been in somewhat different language. That language was entirely natural, however, believing, as he did, that they were all guilty of the unpardonable sin, in its blackest dye; that, obstinately refusing to confess, they were reprobates, sunk far below the ordinary level of human crime, beyond the pale of sympathy or prayer, enemies of God, in covenant with the Devil, and firebrands of Hell. All this he believed. Of course, he could not pray _with_, and could hardly be expected to pray _for_, them. The language ascribed to him by Calef, expressed his honest convictions; bears the stamp of credibility; was not denied or disavowed, then; and cannot be discredited, now. If those sufferers, wearing the resplendent aspect of faith, forgiveness, and piety, in their dying hour, were, in reality, "the Devil appearing as the Angel of Light," nobody but the Reviewer is to blame for charging Mather with being his "spiritual adviser and counsellor." The Reviewer says that the horse Mather rode on that occasion, "has been tramping through history, for nearly two centuries. It is time that he be reined up." Not having been reined up by Mather, it is in vain for the Reviewer to attempt it. Mazeppa, on his wild steed, was not more powerless. The "man on horseback," described by Calef, will go tramping on through all the centuries to come, as through the "nearly two centuries" that have passed. To discredit another part of the statement of Calef, the Reviewer cites the _Description and History of Salem_, by the Rev. William Bentley, in the Sixth Volume of the First Series of the _Massachusetts Historical Collections_, printed in 1800, quoting the following passage: "It was said that the bodies were not properly buried; but, upon an examination of the ground, the graves were found of the usual depth, and remains of the bodies, and of the wood in which they were interred." At the time when this was written, there was a tradition to that effect. But it is understood that, early in this century, an examination was made of the spot, pointed out by the tradition upon which Bentley had relied, and nothing was found to sustain it. It is apparent that this tradition was, to some extent, incorrect, because it is quite certain that three, and probably most, of the bodies were recovered by their friends, at the time; but chiefly because it is believed, on sufficient grounds, that the locality, indicated in the tradition that had reached Doctor Bentley, was, in 1692, covered by the original forest. Of course, a passage through woods, to a spot, even now, after the trees have been wholly removed from the hill and all its sides, so very difficult of access, would not have been encountered; neither can it be supposed that an open area would have been elaborately prepared for the place of execution, in the midst of a forest, entirely shut in from observation, by surrounding trees, with their thick foliage, in that season of the year. If seclusion had been the object, a wooded spot might have been found, near at hand, on level areas, anywhere in the neighborhood of the town. But it was not a secluded, but a conspicuous, place that was sought; not only an elevated, but an open, theatre for the awe-inspiring spectacle, displaying to the whole people and world--to use the language employed by Mather, in the _Advice of the Ministers_ and in one of his letters to Richards--the "Success" of the Court, in "extinguishing that horrible witchcraft." Another tradition, brought down through a family, ever since residing on the same spot, in the neighborhood, and from the longevity of its successive heads, passing through but few memories, and for that reason highly deserving of credit, is, that its representative, at that time, lent his aid in the removal of the bodies of the victims, in the night, and secretly, across the river, in a boat. The recollections of the transaction are preserved in considerable detail. From the locality, it is quite certain that the bodies were brought to it from the southern end of Witch-hill. From a recently-discovered letter of Dr. Holyoke, mentioned in my book [_ii., 377_], it appears that the executions must have taken place there. The earth is so thin, scattered between projecting ledges of rock, which, indeed, cover much of the surface, that few trees probably ever grew there; and a bare, elevated platform afforded a conspicuous site, and room for the purpose. These conclusions, to which recent discoveries and explorations have led, remarkably confirm Calef's statements. From Sheriff Corwin's _Return_, we know that the first victim was buried "in the place" where she was executed; and it may be supposed all the rest were. The soil is shallow, near the brow of the precipice and between the clefts of the rock. The Reviewer desires to know my authority for saying that the ground, where Burroughs was buried, "was trampled down by the mob." I presume that when, less than five weeks afterwards, eight more persons were hanged there, belonging to respectable families in what are now Peabody, Marblehead, Topsfield, Rowley and Andover, as well as Salem, and a spectacle again presented to which crowds flocked from all quarters, and to which many particularly interested must have been drawn, besides those from the populous neighborhood, especially if men "on horseback" mingled in the throng, the ground must have been considerably trampled upon. Poor Burroughs had been suddenly torn from his family and home, more than a hundred miles away; there were no immediate connections, here, who would have been likely to recover his remains; and, it is therefore probable, they had been left where they were thrown, near the foot of the gallows. There is one point upon which the Reviewer is certain he has "demolished" Calef. The latter speaks of the victims as having been hanged, one after another. The Reviewer says, the mode of execution was to have them "swung off at once;" and further uses this argument: "Calef himself furnishes us with evidence that such was the practice in Salem, where eight persons were hanged thirty-six days later. He says, 'After the execution, Mr. Noyes, turning him to the bodies, said--What a sad thing it is to see eight firebrands of Hell hanging there.'" The argument is, eight were hanging there together, after the execution; therefore, they must have been swung off at the same moment! This is a kind of reasoning with which--to adopt Mather's expression in describing diabolical horrors, capital trials, and condemnations to death--we are "entertained" throughout by the Reviewer. The truth is, we have no particular knowledge of the machinery, or its operations, at these executions. A "halter," a "ladder," a "gallows," a "hangman," are spoken of. The expression used for the final act is, "turned off." There is no shadow of evidence to contradict Calef. The probabilities seem to be against the supposition of a structure, on a scale so large, as to allow room for eight persons to be turned off at once. The outstretching branches from large trees, on the borders of the clearing, would have served the purpose, and a ladder, connected with a simple frame, might have been passed from tree to tree. The Regicides, thirty years before, had been executed in England in the method Calef understood to have been used here. Hugh Peters was carried to execution with Judge Cook. The latter suffered first; and when Peters ascended the ladder, turning to the officer of the law, he uttered these memorable words, exhibiting a state of the faculties, a grandeur of bearing, and a force and felicity of language and illustration, all the circumstances considered, not surpassed in the records of Christian heroism or true eloquence: "Sir, you have slain one of the servants of God, before mine eyes, and have made me to behold it, on purpose to terrify and discourage me; but God hath made it an ordinance unto me, for my strengthening and encouragement." While the trials were going on, Mather made use of his pulpit to influence the public mind, already wrought up to frenzy, to greater heights of fanaticism, by portraying, in his own peculiar style, the out-breaking battle between the Church and the Devil. On the day before Burroughs, who was regarded as the head of the Church, and General of the forces, of Satan, was brought to the Bar, Mather preached a Sermon from the text, _Rev._, xii., 12. "Wo to the inhabitants of the earth, and of the Sea! for the Devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth he hath but a short time." It is thickly interspersed with such passages as these: "Now, at last, the Devils are, (if I may so speak), _in Person_ come down upon us, with such a wrath, as is most justly _much_, and will quickly be _more_, the astonishment of the world." "There is little room for hope, that the great wrath of the Devil will not prove the ruin of our poor New England, in particular. I believe there never was a poor plantation more pursued by the wrath of the Devil than our poor New England." "We may truly say, _Tis the hour and power of darkness_. But, though the wrath be so great, the time is but short: when we are perplexed with the wrath of the Devil, the word of our God, at the same time, unto us, is that in _Rom._, xvi., 20. '_The God of Peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly._' Shortly, didst thou say, dearest Lord? O gladsome word! Amen, even so, come Lord! Lord Jesus, come quickly! We shall never be rid of this troublesome Devil, till thou do come to chain him up."--_Wonders, etc._ There is much in the Sermon that relates to the sins of the people, generally, and some allusions to the difficulties that encompass the subject of diabolical appearances; but the witchcraft in Salem is portrayed in colors, which none but a thorough believer in all that was there brought forward, could apply; the whole train of ideas and exhortations is calculated to inflame the imaginations and passions of the people; and it is closed by "An hortatory and necessary Address to a country now extraordinarily alarum'd by the Wrath of the Devil." In this Address, he goes, at length, into the horrible witchcraft at Salem Village. "Such," says he, "is the descent of the Devil, at this day, upon ourselves, that I may truly tell you, the walls of the whole world are broken down." He enumerates, as undoubtedly true, in detail, all that was said by the "afflicted children" and "confessing witches." He says of the reputed witches: "They each of them have their spectres or devils, commissioned by them, and representing of them, to be the engines of their malice." Such expressions as these are scattered over the pages, "wicked spectres," "diabolical spectres," "owners of spectres," "spectre's hands," "spectral book," etc. And yet it is stated, by the Reviewer, that Mather was opposed to spectral evidence, and denounced it! He gave currency to it, in the popular faith, during the whole period, while the trials and executions were going on, more than any other man. He preached another Sermon, of the same kind, entitled, _The Devil Discovered_. After the trials by the Special Court were over, and that body had been forbidden to meet on the day to which it had adjourned, he addressed another letter to John Richards, one of its members, dated "Dec. 14th, 1692," to be found in the _Mather Papers_, p. 397. It is a characteristic document, and, in some points of view, commendable. Its purpose was to induce Richards to consent to a measure he was desirous of introducing into his pastoral administration, to which Richards and one other member of his Church had manifested repugnance. Cotton Mather was in advance of his times, in liberality of views, relating to denominational matters. He desired to open the door to the Ordinances, particularly Baptism, wider than was the prevalent practice. He urges his sentiments upon Richards in earnest and fitting tones; but resorts, also, to flattering, and what may be called coaxing, tones. He calls him, "My ever-honored Richards," "Dearest Sir," "my dear Major," and reminds him of the public and constant support he had given to his official conduct: "I have signalized my perpetual respects before the whole world." In this letter, he refers to the Salem witchcraft prosecutions, and pronounces unqualified approval and high encomiums upon Richards's share in the proceedings, as one of the Judges. "God has made more than an ordinary use of your honorable hand," in "the extinguishing" of "that horrible witchcraft," into which "the Devils have been baptizing so many of our miserable neighbors." This language is hardly consistent with a serious, substantial, considerable, or indeed with any, disapprobation of the proceedings of the Court. FOOTNOTES: [3] _Transactions of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec_--Octavo, Quebec, 1831--ii., 313-316. XI. LETTER TO STEPHEN SEWALL. "WONDERS OF THE INVISIBLE WORLD." ITS ORIGIN AND DESIGN. COTTON MATHER'S ACCOUNT OF THE TRIALS. I come now to the examination of matters of interest and importance, not only as illustrating the part acted by Mather in the witchcraft affair, but as bearing upon the public history of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, at that time. The reader is requested carefully to examine the following letter, addressed by Cotton Mather to Stephen Sewall, Clerk of the Court at Salem. "BOSTON, Sept. 20, 1692. "MY DEAR AND MY VERY OBLIGING STEPHEN, "It is my hap, to bee continually * * * with all sorts of objections, and objectors against the * * * work now doing at Salem, and it is my further good hap, to do some little Service for God and you, in my encounters. "But, that I may be the more capable to assist, in lifting up a standard against the infernal enemy, I must renew my most IMPORTUNATE REQUEST, that would please quickly to perform, what you kindly promised, of giving me a narrative of the evidence given in at the trials of half a dozen, or if you please, a dozen, of the principal witches, that have been condemned. I know 'twill cost you some time; but when you are sensible of the benefit that will follow, I know you will not think much of that cost, and my own willingness to expose myself unto the utmost for the defence of my friends with you, makes me presume to plead something of merit, to be considered. "I shall be content, if you draw up the desired narrative by way of letter to me, or at least, let it not come without a letter, wherein you shall, if you can, intimate over again, what you have sometimes told me, of the awe, which is upon the hearts of your Juries, with * * * unto the validity of the spectral evidences. "Please also to * * * some of your observations about the confessors, and the credibility of what they assert; or about things evidently preternatural in the witchcrafts, and whatever else you may account an entertainment, for an inquisitive person, that entirely loves you, and Salem. Nay, though I will never lay aside the character which I mentioned in my last words, yet, I am willing that, when you write, you should imagine me as obstinate a Sadducee and witch-advocate, as any among us: address me as one that believed nothing reasonable; and when you have so knocked me down, in a spectre so unlike me, you will enable me to box it about, among my neighbors, till it come, I know not where at last. "But assure yourself, as I shall not wittingly make what you write prejudicial to any worthy design, which those two excellent persons, Mr. Hale and Mr. Noyes, may have in hand, so you shall find that I shall be, "Sir, your grateful friend, C. MATHER." "P. S. That which very much strengthens the charms of the request, which this letter makes you, is that his Excellency, the Governor, laid his positive commands upon me to desire this favor of you; and the truth is, there are some of his circumstances with reference to this affair, which I need not mention, that call for the expediting of your kindness, _kindness_, I say, for such it will be esteemed, as well by him, as by your servant, C. MATHER." The point, on which the Reviewer raises an objection to the statement in my book, in reference to this letter, is, as to the antecedent of "it," in the expression, "box it about." The opinion I gave was that it referred to the document requested to be sent by Sewall. The Reviewer says it refers to "a Spectre," in the preceding line, or as he expresses it, "the fallen Spectre of Sadduceeism." Every one can judge for himself on inspection of the passage. After all, it is a mere quibbling about words, for the meaning remains substantially the same. Indeed, that which he gives is more to my purpose. Let it go, that Mather desired the document, and intended to use it, to break down all objectors to the work then doing in Salem. Whoever disapproved of such proceedings, or intimated any doubt concerning the popular notions about witchcraft, were called "Sadducees and witch-advocates." These terms were used by Mather, on all occasions, as marks of opprobrium, to stigmatize and make odious such persons. If they could once be silenced, witchcraft demonstrations and prosecutions might be continued, without impediment or restraint, until they should "come," no one could tell "where, at last." "The fallen Spectre of Sadduceeism" was to be the trophy of Mather's victory; and Sewall's letter was to be the weapon to lay it low. Each of the paragraphs of this letter demonstrates the position Mather occupied, and the part he had taken, in the transactions at Salem. Mr. Hale had acted, up to this time, earnestly with Noyes and Parris; and the letter shows that Mather had the sympathies and the interests of a cooperator with them, and in their "designs." Every person of honorable feelings can judge for himself of the suggestion to Sewall, to be a partner in a false representation to the public, by addressing Mather "in a spectre so unlike" him--that is, in a character which he, Sewall, knew, as well as Mather, to be wholly contrary to the truth. Blinded, active, and vehement, as the Clerk of the Court had been, in carrying on the prosecutions, it is gratifying to find reason to conclude that he was not so utterly lost to self-respect as to comply with the jesuitical request, or lend himself to any such false connivance. The letter was written at the height of the fury of the delusion, immediately upon a Session of the Court, at which all tried had been condemned, eight of whom suffered two days after its date. Any number of others were under sentence of death. The letter was a renewal of "a most importunate request." I cite it, here, at this stage of the examination of the subject, particularly on account of the postscript. Every one has been led to suppose that "His Excellency, the Governor," who had laid such "positive commands" upon Mather to obtain the desired document from Sewall, was Sir William Phips. The avowed purpose of Mather, in seeking it, was to put it into circulation--to "box it about"--thereby to produce an effect, to the putting down of Sadduceeism, or all further opposition to witchcraft prosecutions. He, undoubtedly, contemplated making it a part of his book, the _Wonders of the Invisible World_, printed, the next year, in London. The statement made by him always was, that he wrote that book in compliance with orders laid upon him to that effect by "His Excellency, the Governor." The imprimatur, in conspicuous type, in front of one of the editions of the book, is "Published by the special command of his Excellency, the Governor of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England." On the sixteenth of September, Sir William Phips had notified the Council of his going to the eastward; and that body was adjourned to the fourteenth of October. From his habitual promptness, and the pressing exigency of affairs in the neighborhood of the Kennebec, it is to be presumed that he left immediately; and, as it was expected to be a longer absence than usual, it can hardly be doubted that, as on the first of August, he formally, by a written instrument, passed the Government over to Stoughton. At any rate, while he was away from his Province proper, the Deputy necessarily acceded to the Executive functions. In the Sewall Diary we find the following: "SEPT. 21. A petition is sent to Town, in behalf of Dorcas Hoar, who now confesses. Accordingly, an order is sent to the Sheriff to forbear her execution, notwithstanding her being in the Warrant to die to-morrow. This is the first condemned person who has confessed." The granting of this reprieve was an executive act, that would seem to have belonged to the functions of the person filling the office of Governor; and Phips being absent, it could only have been performed by Stoughton, and shows, therefore, that he, at that time, acted as Governor. As such, he was, by custom and etiquette, addressed--"His Excellency." The next day, eight were executed, four of them having been sentenced on the ninth of September, and four on the seventeenth, which was on Saturday. The whole eight were included, as is to be inferred from the foregoing entry, and is otherwise known, in the same Warrant, which could not, therefore, have been made out before the nineteenth. The next day, Mather wrote the letter to Sewall; and the language, in its Postscript, may have referred to Stoughton; particularly this clause: "There are some of his circumstances, with reference to this affair." As Phips had, from the first, left all the proceedings with the Chief-justice, who had presided at all the trials, and was, by universal acknowledgment, especially responsible for all the proceedings and results, the words of Mather are much more applicable to Stoughton than to Phips. Upon receiving these "importunate requests" from Mather, proposing such a form of reply, to be used in such a way, Sewall thought it best to adopt the course indicated in the following entry, in the Diary of his brother, the Judge: "THURSDAY, SEPT. 22, 1692. William Stoughton, Esq., John Hathorne, Esq., Mr. Cotton Mather, and Capt. John Higginson, with my brother St. were at our house, speaking about publishing some trials of the witches." It appears that Stephen Sewall, instead of answering Mather's letter in writing, went directly to Boston, accompanied by Hathorne and Higginson, and met Mather and Stoughton at the house of the Judge. No other Minister was present; and Judge Sewall was not Mather's parishioner. The whole matter was there talked over. The project Mather had been contemplating was matured; and arrangements made with Stephen Sewall, who had them in his custody, to send to Mather the Records of the trials; and, thus provided, he proceeded, without further delay, in obedience to the commands laid upon him by "his Excellency," to prepare for the press, _The Wonders of the Invisible World_, which was designed to send to the shades, "Sadduceeism," to extirpate "witch-advocates," and to leave the course clear for the indefinite continuance of the prosecutions, until, as Stoughton expressed it, "the land was cleared" of all witches. The presence of the Deputy-governor, at this private conference, shows the prominent part he bore in the movement, and corroborates, what is inferrible from the dates, that he was "His Excellency, the Governor," referred to in the documents connected with this transaction. It is observable, by the way, that the references are always to the official character and title, and not to the name of the person, whether Phips or Stoughton. I now proceed to examine the book, written and brought forward, under these circumstances and for this purpose. It contains much of which I shall avail myself, to illustrate the position and the views of Mather, at the time. The length to which this article is extended, by the method I have adopted of quoting documents so fully, is regretted; but it seems necessary, in order to meet the interest that has been awakened in the subject, by the article in the _North American Review_, to make the enquiry as thorough as possible. Only a part of the work is devoted to the main purpose for which it was ostensibly and avowedly designed. That I shall first notice. It is introduced as follows: "I shall no longer detain my reader from his expected entertainment, in a brief account of the Trials which have passed upon some of the Malefactors lately executed at Salem, for the witchcrafts whereof they stood convicted. For my own part, I was not present at any of them; nor ever had I any personal prejudice at the persons thus brought upon the Stage; much less, at the surviving relations of those persons, with and for whom I would be as hearty a mourner, as any man living in the world: _The Lord comfort them!_ But having received a command so to do, I can do no other than shortly relate the chief _Matters of Fact_, which occurred in the trials of some that were executed; in an abridgement collected out of the _Court Papers_, on this occasion put into my hands. You are to take the _Truth_, just as it was."--_Wonders of the Invisible World, p. 54._ He singles out five cases and declares: "I report matters not as an _Advocate_, but as an _Historian_." After further prefacing his account, by relating, _A modern instance of Witches, discovered and condemned, in a trial before that celebrated Judge, Sir Matthew Hale_, he comes to the trial of George Burroughs. He spreads out, without reserve, the spectral evidence, given in this as in all the cases, and without the least intimation of objection from himself, or any one else, to its being _admitted_, as, "with other things to render it credible" enough for the purpose of conviction. Any one reading his account, and at the same time examining the documents on file, will be able to appreciate how far he was justified in saying, that he reported it in the spirit of an historian rather than an advocate. Let, us, first, see what the "Court papers, put into his hands," amounted to; as we find them in the files. "The Deposition of Simon Willard, aged about 42 years, saith: I being at Saco, in the year 1689, some in Capt. Ed. Sargent's garrison were speaking of Mr. George Burroughs his great strength, saying he could take a barrel of molasses out of a canoe or boat, alone; and that he could take it in his hands, or arms, out of the canoe or boat, and carry it, and set it on the shore: and Mr. Burroughs being there, said that he had carried one barrel of molasses or cider out of a canoe, that had like to have done him a displeasure; said Mr. Burroughs intimated, as if he did not want strength to do it, but the disadvantage of the shore was such, that, his foot slipping in the sand, he had liked to have strained his leg." Willard was uncertain whether Burroughs had stated it to be molasses or cider. John Brown testified about a "barrel of cider." Burroughs denied the statement, as to the molasses, thereby impliedly admitting that he had so carried a barrel of cider. Samuel Webber testified that, seven or eight years before, Burroughs told him that, by putting his fingers into the bung of a barrel of molasses, he had lifted it up, and "carried it round him, and set it down again." Parris, in his notes of this trial, not in the files, says that "_Capt. Wormwood_ testified about the gun and the molasses." But the papers on file give the name as "_Capt. W^m Wormall_," and represents that he, referring to the gun, "swore" that he "saw George Burroughs raise it from the ground." His testimony, with this exception, was merely confirmatory, in general terms, of another deposition of Simon Willard, to the effect, that Burroughs, in explanation of one of the stories about his great strength, showed him how he held a gun of "about seven foot barrel," by taking it "in his hand behind the lock," and holding it out; Willard further stating that he did not see him "hold it out then," and that he, Willard, so taking the gun with both hands, could not hold it out long enough to take sight. The testimony, throughout, was thus loose and conflicting, almost wholly mere hearsay, of no value, logically or legally. All that was really proved being what Burroughs admitted, that is, as to the cider. But, in the statement made by him to Willard, at Saco, as deposed by the latter, he mentioned a circumstance, namely, the straining of his leg, which, if not true, could easily have been disproved, that demonstrated the effort to have been made, and the feat accomplished, by the natural exercise of muscular power. If preternatural force had aided him, it would have been supplied in sufficient quantity to have prevented such a mishap. To convey the impression that the exhibitions of strength ascribed to Burroughs were proofs of diabolical assistance, and demonstrations that he was guilty of the crime of witchcraft, Mather says "he was a very puny man, yet he had often done things beyond the strength of a giant." There is nothing to justify the application of the word "puny" to him, except that he was of small stature. Such persons are often very strong. Burroughs had, from his college days, been noted for gymnastic exercises. There is nothing, I repeat, to justify the use of the word, by Mather, in the sense he designed to convey, of bodily weakness. The truth is, that his extraordinary muscular power, as exhibited in such feats as lifting the barrel of cider, was the topic of neighborhood talk; and there was much variation, as is usual in such cases, some having it a barrel of cider, and some, of molasses. There is, among the Court papers, a _Memorandum, in Mr. George Burroughs trial, beside the written evidences_. One item is the testimony of Thomas Evans, "that he carried out barrels of molasses, meat, &c., out of a canoe, whilst his mate went to the fort for hands to help out with." Here we see another variation of the story. The amount of it is, that, while the mate thought assistance needed, and went to get it, Burroughs concluded to do the work himself. If the Prisoner had been allowed Counsel; or any discernment been left in the Judges, the whole of this evidence would have been thrown out of account, as without foundation and frivolous in its character; yet Increase Mather, who was present, was entirely carried away with it, and declared that, upon it alone, if on the Bench or in the jury-box, he would have convicted the Prisoner. It is quite doubtful, however, whether the above testimony of Evans was given in, at the trial; for the next clause, in the same paragraph, is Sarah Wilson's confession, that: "The night before Mr. Burroughs was executed, there was a great meeting of the witches, nigh Sargeant Chandlers, that Mr. Burroughs was there, and they had the sacrament, and after they had done, he took leave, and bid them stand to their faith, and not own any thing. Martha Tyler saith the same with Sarah Wilson, and several others." The testimony of these two confessing witches, "and several others," relating, as it did, to what was alleged to have happened "the night before Mr. Burroughs was executed," could not have been given at his trial, nor until after his death. Yet, as but three other confessing witches are mentioned in the files of this case, Mather must have relied upon this Memorandum to make up the "eight" said, by him, to have testified, "in the prosecution of the charge" against Burroughs. Hale, misled, perhaps, by the Memorandum, uses the indefinite expression "seven or eight." We know that one of the confessing witches, who had given evidence against Burroughs, retracted it before the Court, previous to his execution; but Mather makes no mention of that fact. To go back to the barrel Mr. Burroughs lifted. I have stated the substance of the whole testimony relating to the point. Mather characterizes it, thus, in his report of the trial: "There was evidence likewise brought in, that he made nothing of taking up whole barrels, filled with molasses or cider, in very disadvantageous positions, and carrying them off, through the most difficult places, out of a canoe to the shore." He made up this statement, as its substance and phraseology show, from Willard's deposition, then lying before him. In his use of that part of the evidence, in particular, as of the whole evidence, generally, the reader can judge whether he exhibited the spirit of an historian or of an advocate; and whether there was any thing to justify his expression, "made nothing of." Any one scrutinizing the evidence, which, strange to say, was allowed to come in on a trial for witchcraft, relating to alleged misunderstandings between Burroughs and his two wives, involved in an alienation between him and some of the relations of the last, will see that it amounts to nothing more than the scandals incident to imbittered parish quarrels, and inevitably engendered in such a state of credulity and malevolence, as the witchcraft prosecutions produced. Yet our "historian," in his report of the case, says: "Now G. B. had been infamous, for the barbarous usage of his two successive wives, all the country over." In my book, in connection with another piece of evidence in the papers, given, like that of the confessing witches just referred to, long after Burroughs's execution, I expressed surprise that the irregularity of putting such testimony among the documents belonging to the trial, escaped the notice of Hutchinson, eminent jurist as he was, and also of Calef. The Reviewer represents this remark as one of my "very grave and unsupported charges against the honesty of Cotton Mather." I said nothing about Mather in connection with that point, but expressed strong disapprobation of the conduct of the official persons who procured the deposition to be made, and of those having the custody of the papers. The Reviewer, imagining that my censure was levelled at Mather, and resolved to defend him, through thick and thin, denies that the document in question was "surreptitiously foisted in." But there it was, when Mather had the papers, and there it now is,--its date a month after Burroughs was in his rocky grave. The Reviewer says that if I had looked to the end of Mather's notice of the document, or observed the brackets in which it was enclosed, I would have seen that Mather says that the paper was not used at the trial. I stated the fact, expressly, and gave Mather's explanation "that the man was overpersuaded by others to be out of the way upon George Burroughs's trial." [_ii., 300, 303_] I found no fault with Mather, in connection with the paper; and am not answerable, at all, for the snarl in which the Reviewer's mind has become entangled, in his eagerness to assail my book. I ask a little further attention to this matter, because it affords an illustration of Mather's singular, but characteristic, method of putting things, often deceiving others, and sometimes, perhaps, himself. I quote the paragraph from his report of the trial of Burroughs, in the _Wonders of the Invisible World_, p. 64: "There were two testimonies, that G. B. with only putting the fore-finger of his right hand into the muzzle of an heavy gun, a fowling-piece of about six or seven foot barrel, did lift up the gun, and hold it out at arms end; a gun which the deponents, though strong men, could not, with both hands, lift up, and hold out, at the butt end, as is usual. Indeed, one of these witnesses was overpersuaded by some persons to be out of the way, upon G. B.'s trial; but he came afterwards, with sorrow for his withdraw; and gave in his testimony; nor were either of these witnesses made use of as evidences in the trial." The Reviewer says that Mather included the above paragraph in "brackets," to apprise the reader that the evidence, to which it relates, was not given at the trial. It is true that the brackets are found in the Boston edition: but they are omitted, in the London edition, of the same year, 1693. If it was thought expedient to prevent misunderstanding, or preserve the appearance of fairness, _here_, the precaution was not provided for the English reader. He was left to receive the impression from the opening words, "there were two testimonies," that they were given at the trial, and to run the luck of having it removed by the latter part of the paragraph. The whole thing is so stated as to mystify and obscure. There were "_two_" testimonies; "_one_" is said not to have been presented; and then, that neither was presented. The reader, not knowing what to make of it, is liable to carry off nothing distinctly, except that, somehow, "there were testimonies" brought to bear against Burroughs; whereas not a syllable of it came before the Court. Never going out of my way to criticise Cotton Mather, nor breaking the thread of my story for that purpose, I did not, in my book, call attention to this paragraph, as to its bearing upon him, but the strange use the Reviewer has made of it against me, compels its examination, in detail. What right had Mather to insert this paragraph, at all, in his report of the _trial_ of George Burroughs? It refers to extra-judicial and gratuitous statements that had nothing to do with the trial, made a month after Burroughs had passed out of Court and out of the world, beyond the reach of all tribunals and all Magistrates. It was not true that "there were two testimonies" to the facts alleged, _at the trial_, which, and which alone, Mather was professing to report. It is not a sufficient justification, that he contradicted, in the last clause, what he said in the first. This was one of Mather's artifices, as a writer, protecting himself from responsibility, while leaving an impression. Mather says there were "_two_" witnesses of the facts alleged in the paragraph. Upon a careful re-examination of the papers on file, there appears to have been only _one_, in support of it. It stands solely on the single disposition of Thomas Greenslitt, of the fifteenth of September, 1692. The deponent mentions two other persons, by name, "and some others that are dead," who witnessed the exploit. But no evidence was given by them; and the muzzle story, according to the papers on file, stands upon the deposition of Greenslitt alone. The paragraph gives the idea that Greenslitt put himself out of the way, at the time of the trial of Burroughs; but there is reason to believe that he lived far down in the eastern country, and subsequently came voluntarily to Salem, from his distant home, to be present at the trial of his mother. The deposition was obtained from him in the period between her condemnation and execution. The motives that may have led the prosecutors to think it important to procure, and the probable inducement that led him to give, the deposition are explained in my book [_ii., 298_]. Greenslitt states that "the gun was of six-foot barrel or thereabouts." Mather reports him as saying "about six or seven foot barrel." The account of the trial of Burroughs, throughout, is charged with extreme prejudice against the Prisoner; and the character of the evidence is exaggerated. One of the witnesses, in the trial of Bridget Bishop, related a variety of mishaps, such as the stumping of the off-wheel of his cart, the breaking of the gears, and a general coming to pieces of the harness and vehicle, on one occasion; and his not being able, on another, to lift a bag of corn as easily as usual; and he ascribed it all to the witchery of the Prisoner. Mather gives his statement, concluding thus: "Many other pranks of this Bishop this deponent was ready to testify." He endorses every thing, however absurd, especially if resting on spectral evidence, as absolute, unquestionable, and demonstrated facts. Nothing was proved against the moral character of Susannah Martin; and nothing was brought to bear upon her, but the most ridiculous and shameful tales of blind superstition and malignant credulity. The extraordinary acumen and force of mind, however, exhibited in her defence, to the discomfiture of the examining Magistrates and Judges, excited their wrath and that of all concerned in the prosecution. Mather finishes the account of her trial in these words: "NOTE. This woman was one of the most impudent, scurrilous, wicked creatures in the world; and she did now, throughout her whole trial, discover herself to be such an one. Yet when she was asked what she had to say for herself, her chief plea was, 'that she had led a most virtuous and holy life.'"--_Wonders, etc._, 126. Well might he, and all who acted in bringing this remarkable woman to her death, have been exasperated against her. She will be remembered, in perpetual history, as having risen superior to them all, in intellectual capacity, and as having utterly refuted the whole system of spectral doctrine, upon which her life and the lives of all the others were sacrificed. Looking towards "the afflicted children," who had sworn that her spectre tortured them, the Magistrate asked, "How comes your appearance to hurt these?" Her answer was, "How do I know? He that appeared in the shape of Samuel, a glorified Saint, may appear in any one's shape." It is truly astonishing that Mather should have selected the name of Elizabeth How, to be held up to abhorrence and classed among the "Malefactors." It shows how utterly blinded and perverted he was by the horrible delusion that "possessed" him. If her piety and virtue were of no avail in leading him to pause in aspersing her memory, by selecting her case to be included in the "black list" of those reported by him in his _Wonders_, one would have thought he would have paid some regard to the testimony of his clerical brethren and to the feelings of her relatives, embracing many most estimable families. She was nearly connected with the venerable Minister of Andover, Francis Dane, and belonged to the family of Jacksons. There was, and is, among the papers, a large body of evidence in her favor, most weighty and decisive, yet Mather makes no allusion to it whatever; although he must have known of it, from outside information as well as the documents before him. Two of the most respectable Ministers in the country, Phillips and Payson of Rowley, many of her neighbors, men and women, and the father of her husband, ninety-four years of age, testified to her eminent Christian graces, and portrayed a picture of female gentleness, loveliness, and purity, not surpassed in the annals of her sex. The two Clergymen exposed and denounced the wickedness of the means that had been employed to bring the stigma of witchcraft upon her good name. Mather not only withholds all this evidence, but speaks with special bitterness of this excellent woman, calling her, over and over again, throughout his whole account, "This How." There is reason to apprehend that much cruelty was practised upon the Prisoners, especially to force them to confess. The statements made by John Proctor, in his letter to the Ministers, are fully entitled to credit, from his unimpeached honesty of character, as well as from the position of the persons addressed. It is not to be imagined, that, at its date, on the twenty-third of July, twelve days before his trial, he would have made, in writing, such declarations to them, had they not been true. He says that brutal violence was used upon his son to induce him to confess. He also states that two of the children of Martha Carrier were "tied neck and heels, till the blood was ready to come out of their noses." The outrages, thus perpetrated, with all the affrighting influences brought to bear, prevailed over Carrier's children. Some of them were used as witnesses against her. A little girl, not eight years old, was made to swear that she was a witch; that her mother, when she was six years old, made her so, baptizing her, and compelling her "to set her hand to a book," and carried her, "in her spirit," to afflict people; that her mother, after she was in prison, came to her in the shape of "a black cat;" and that the cat told her it was her mother. Another of her children testified that he, and still another, a brother, were witches, and had been present, in spectre, at Witch-sacraments, telling who were there, and where they procured their wine. All this the mother had to hear. Thomas Carrier, her husband, had, a year or two before, been involved in a controversy about the boundaries of his lands, in which hard words had passed. The energy of character, so strikingly displayed by his wife, at her Examination, rendered her liable to incur animosities, in the course of a neighborhood feud. The whole force of angry superstition had been arrayed against her; and she became the object of scandal, in the form it then was made to assume, the imputation of being a witch. Her Minister, Mr. Dane, in a strong and bold letter, in defence of his parishioners, many of whom had been accused, says: "There was a suspicion of Goodwife Carrier among some of us, before she was apprehended, I know." He avers that he had lived above forty years in Andover, and had been much conversant with the people, "at their habitations;" that, hearing that some of his people were inclined to indulge in superstitions stories, and give heed to tales of the kind, he preached a Sermon against all such things; and that, since that time, he knew of no person that countenanced practices of the kind; concluding his statement in these words: "So far as I had the understanding of any thing amongst us, do declare, that I believe the reports have been scandalous and unjust, neither will bear the light." Atrocious as were the outrages connected with the prosecutions, in 1692, none, it appears to me, equalled those committed in the case of Martha Carrier. The Magistrates who sat and listened, with wondering awe, to such evidence from a little child against her mother, in the presence of that mother, must have been bereft, by the baleful superstitions of the hour, of all natural sensibility. They countenanced a violation of reason, common sense, and the instincts of humanity, too horrible to be thought of. The unhappy mother felt it in the deep recesses of her strong nature. That trait, in the female and maternal heart, which, when developed, assumes a heroic aspect, was brought out in terrific power. She looked to the Magistrates, after the accusing girls had charged her with having "killed thirteen at Andover," with a stern bravery to which those dignitaries had not been accustomed, and rebuked them: "It is a shameful thing, that you should mind those folks that are out of their wits;" and then, turning to the accusers, said, "You lie, and I am wronged." This woman, like all the rest, met her fate with a demeanor that left no room for malice to utter a word of disparagement, protesting her innocence. Mather witnessed her execution; and in a memorandum to the report, written in the professed character of an historian, having great compassion for "surviving relatives," calls her a "rampant hag." Bringing young children to swear away the life of their mother, was probably felt by the Judges to be too great a shock upon natural sensibilities to be risked again, and they were not produced at the trial; but Mather, notwithstanding, had no reluctance to publish the substance of their testimony, as what they would have sworn to if called upon; and says they were not put upon the stand, because there was evidence "enough" without them. Such were the reports of those of the trials, which had then taken place, selected by Mather to be put into the _Wonders of the Invisible World_, and thus to be "boxed about,"--to adopt the Reviewer's interpretation--to strike down the "Spectre of Sadduceeism," that is, to extirpate and bring to an end all doubts about witchcraft and all attempts to stop the prosecutions. This book was written while the proceedings at Salem were at their height, during the very month in which sixteen persons had been sentenced to death and eight executed, evidently, from its whole tenor, and as the Reviewer admits, for the purpose of silencing objectors and doubters, Sadducees and Witch-advocates, before the meeting of the Court, by adjournment, in the first week of November, to continue--as the Ministers, in their _Advice_, expressed it--their "sedulous and assiduous endeavours to defeat the abominable witchcrafts which have been committed in the country." Little did those concerned, in keeping up the delusion and prolonging the scenes in the Salem Court-house and on Witch-hill, dream that the curtain was so soon to fall upon the horrid tragedy and confound him who combined, in his own person, the functions of Governor, Commander-in-chief, President of the Council, Legislative leader of the General Court, and Chief-justice of the Special Court, and all his aiders and abettors, lay and clerical. XII. "WONDERS OF THE INVISIBLE WORLD," CONTINUED. PASSAGES FROM IT. "CASES OF CONSCIENCE." INCREASE MATHER. In addition to the reports of the trials of the five "Malefactors," as Mather calls them, the _Wonders of the Invisible World_ contains much matter that helps us to ascertain the real opinions, at the time, of its author, to which justice to him, and to all, requires me to risk attention. The passages, to be quoted, will occupy some room; but they will repay the reading, in the light they shed upon the manner in which such subjects were treated in the most accredited literature, and infused into the public mind, at that day. The style of Cotton Mather, while open to the criticisms generally made, is lively and attractive; and, for its ingenuity of expression and frequent felicity of illustration, often quite refreshing. The work was written under a sense of the necessity of maintaining the position into which the Government of the Province had been led, by so suddenly and rashly organizing the Special Court and putting it upon its bloody work, at Salem; and this could only be done by renewing and fortifying the popular conviction, that such proceedings were necessary, and ought to be vigorously prosecuted, and all Sadduceeism, or opposition to them, put down. It was especially necessary to reconcile, or obscure into indistinctness, certain conflicting theories that had more or less currency. "I do not believe," says Mather, "that the progress of Witchcraft among us, is all the plot which the Devil is managing in the Witchcraft now upon us. It is judged that the Devil raised the storm, whereof we read in the eighth Chapter of Matthew, on purpose to overset the little vessel wherein the disciples of our Lord were embarked with him. And it may be feared that, in the Horrible Tempest which is now upon ourselves, the design of the Devil is to sink that happy Settlement of Government, wherewith Almighty God has graciously inclined their Majesties to favor us."--_Wonders, p. 10._ He then proceeds to compliment Sir William Phips, alluding to his "continually venturing his all," that is, in looking after affairs and fighting Indians in the eastern parts; to applaud Stoughton as "admirably accomplished" for his place; and continues as follows: "Our Councellours are some of our most eminent persons, and as loyal to the Crown, as hearty lovers of their country. Our Constitution also is attended with singular privileges. All which things are by the Devil exceedingly envied unto us. And the Devil will doubtless take this occasion for the raising of such complaints and clamors, as may be of pernicious consequence unto some part of our present Settlement, if he can so far impose. But that, which most of all threatens us, in our present circumstances, is the misunderstandings, and so, the animosities, whereinto the Witchcraft, now raging, has enchanted us. The embroiling, first, of our Spirits, and then, of our affairs." "I am sure, we shall be worse than brutes, if we fly upon one another, at a time when the floods of Belial are upon us." "The Devil has made us like a troubled sea, and the mire and mud begins now also to heave up apace. Even good and wise men suffer themselves to fall into their paroxysms, and the shake which the Devil is now giving us, fetches up the dirt which before lay still at the bottom of our sinful hearts. If we allow the mad dogs of Hell to poison us by biting us, we shall imagine that we see nothing but such things about us, and like such things, fly upon all that we see." After deprecating the animosities and clamors that were threatening to drive himself and his friends from power, he makes a strenuous appeal to persevere in the witchcraft prosecutions. "We are to unite in our endeavours to deliver our distressed neighbors from the horrible annoyances and molestations wherewith a dreadful witchcraft is now persecuting of them. To have an hand in any thing that may stifle or obstruct a regular detection of that witchcraft, is what we may well with an holy fear avoid. Their Majesties good subjects must not every day be torn to pieces by horrid witches, and those bloody felons be left wholly unprosecuted. The witchcraft is a business that will not be shammed, without plunging us into sore plagues, and of long continuance. But then we are to unite in such methods for this deliverance, as may be unquestionably safe, lest the latter end be worse than the beginning. And here, what shall I say? I will venture to say thus much. That we are safe, when we make just as much use of all advice from the invisible world, as God sends it for. It is a safe principle, that when God Almighty permits any spirits, from the unseen regions, to visit us with surprising informations, there is then something to be enquired after; we are then to enquire of one another, what cause there is for such things? The peculiar government of God, over the unbodied Intelligences, is a sufficient foundation for this principle. When there has been a murder committed, an apparition of the slain party accusing of any man, although such apparitions have oftener spoke true than false, is not enough to convict the man as guilty of that murder; but yet it is a sufficient occasion for Magistrates to make a particular enquiry whether such a man have afforded any ground for such an accusation."--_Page 13._ He goes on to apply this principle to the spectres of accused persons, seen by the "afflicted," as constituting sufficient ground to institute proceedings against the persons thus accused. After modifying, apparently, this position, although in language so obscure as to leave his meaning quite uncertain, he says: "I was going to make one venture more; that is, to offer some safe rules, for the finding out of the witches, which are to this day our accursed troublers: but this were a venture too presumptuous and Icarian for me to make. I leave that unto those Excellent and Judicious persons with whom I am not worthy to be numbered: All that I shall do, shall be to lay before my readers, a brief synopsis of what has been written on that subject, by a Triumvirate of as eminent persons as have ever handled it."--_Page 14._ From neither of them, Perkins, Gaule and Bernard, as he cites them, can specific authority be obtained for the admission of spectral testimony, as offered by accusing witnesses, not themselves confessing witches. The third Rule, attributed to Perkins, and the fifth of Bernard, apply to persons confessing the crime of witchcraft, and, after confession, giving evidence affecting another person--the former considering such evidence "not sufficient for condemnation, but a fit presumption to cause a strait examination;" the latter treating it as sufficient to convict a fellow witch, that is, another person also accused of being in "league with the Devil." Bernard specifies, as the kind of evidence, sufficient for conviction, such witnesses might give: "If they can make good the truth of their witness and give sufficient proof of it; as that they have seen them with their Spirits, or that they have received Spirits from them, or that they can tell when they used witchery-tricks to do harm, or that they told them what harm they had done, or that they can show the mark upon them, or that they have been together in those meetings, or such like." Mather remarks, in connection with his synopsis of these Rules: "They are considerable things, which I have thus related." Those I have particularly noticed were enough to let in a large part of the evidence given at the Salem trials--in many respects, the most effective and formidable part--striking the Jury and Court, as well as the people, with an "awe," which rendered no other evidence necessary to overwhelm the mind and secure conviction. The Prisoners themselves were amazed and astounded by it. Mr. Hale, in his account of the proceedings, says: "When George Burroughs was tried, seven or eight of the confessors, severally called, said, they knew the said Burroughs; and saw him at a Witch-meeting at the Village; and heard him exhort the company to pull down the Kingdom of God and set up the Kingdom of the Devil. He denied all, yet said he justified the Judges and Jury in condemning him; because there were so many positive witnesses against him; but said he died by false witnesses." Mr. Hale proceeds to mention this fact: "I seriously spake to one that witnessed (of his exhorting at the Witch-meeting at the Village) saying to her; 'You are one that bring this man to death: if you have charged any thing upon him that is not true, recall it before it be too late, while he is alive.' She answered me, she had nothing to charge herself with, upon that account." Mather omits this circumstance in copying Mr. Hale's narrative. It has always been a mystery, what led the "accusing girls" to cry out, as they afterwards did, against Mr. Hale's wife. Perhaps this expostulation with one of their witnesses, awakened their suspicions. They always struck at every one who appeared to be wavering, or in the least disposed to question the correctness of what was going on. The statement of Mr. Hale shows how effectual and destructive the evidence, authorized by Bernard's book, was; and it also proves how unjust, to the Judges and Magistrates, is the charge made upon them by the Reviewer, that they disregarded and violated the advice of the Ministers. In admitting a species of evidence, wholly spectral, which was fatal, more than any other, to the Prisoners, they followed a rule laid down by the very authors whose "directions" the Ministers, in their _Advice_, written by "Mr. Mather the younger," enjoined upon them to follow. It is noticeable, by the way, that, in that document, they left Gaule out of the "triumvirate;" Mather finding nothing in his book to justify the admission of spectral testimony. He urges the force of the evidence, from confessions, with all possible earnestness. "One would think all the rules of understanding human affairs are at an end, if after so many most voluntary harmonious confessions, made by intelligent persons, of all ages, in sundry towns, at several times, we must not believe the main strokes, wherein those confessions all agree."--_Page 8._ He continues to press the point thus: "If the Devils now can strike the minds of men with any poisons of so fine a composition and operation, that scores of innocent people shall unite, in confessions of a crime, which we see actually committed, it is a thing prodigious, beyond the wonders of the former ages; and it threatens no less than a sort of a dissolution upon the world. Now, by these confessions, it is agreed, that the Devil has made a dreadful knot of witches in the country, and by the help of witches has dreadfully increased that knot; that these witches have driven a trade of commissioning their confederate spirits, to do all sorts of mischiefs to the neighbors, whereupon there have ensued such mischievous consequences upon the bodies and estates of the neighborhood, as could not otherwise be accounted for; yea, that at prodigious Witch-meetings the wretches have proceeded so far as to concert and consult the methods of rooting out the Christian religion from this country, and setting up, instead of it, perhaps a more gross Diabolism, than ever the world saw before. And yet it will be a thing little short of miracle, if, in so spread a business as this, the Devil should not get in some of his juggles, to confound the discovery of all the rest." In the last sentence of the foregoing passage, we see an idea, which Mather expressed in several instances. It amounts to this. Suppose the Devil does "sometimes" make use of the spectre of an innocent person--he does it for the purpose of destroying our faith in that kind of evidence, and leading us to throw it all out, thereby "confounding the discovery" of those cases in which, as ordinarily, he makes use of the spectres of his guilty confederates, and, in effect, sheltering "all the rest," that is, the whole body of those who are the willing and covenanted subjects of his diabolical kingdom, from detection. He says: "The witches have not only intimated, but some of them acknowledged, that they have plotted the representations of innocent persons to cover and shelter themselves in their witchcrafts." He further suggests--for no other purpose, it would seem, than to reconcile us to the use of such evidence, even though, it may, in "rare and extraordinary" instances, bear against innocent persons, scarcely, however, to be apprehended, "when matters come before civil judicature"--that it may be the divine will, that, occasionally, an innocent person _may be cut off_: "Who of us can exactly state how far our God may, for our chastisement, permit the Devil to proceed in such an abuse?" He then alludes to the meeting of Ministers, under his father's auspices, at Cambridge, on the first of August; quotes with approval, the result of his "Discourse," then held; and immediately proceeds: "It is rare and extraordinary, for an honest Naboth to have his life itself sworn away by two children of Belial, and yet no infringement hereby made on the Rectoral Righteousness of our eternal Sovereign, whose judgments are a great deep, and who gives none account of his matters."--_Page 9._ The amount of all this is, that it is so rare and extraordinary for the Devil to assume the spectral shape of an innocent person, that it is best, "when," as his expression is, in another place, "the public safety makes an exigency," to receive and act upon such evidence, even if it should lead to the conviction of an innocent person--a thing so seldom liable to occur, and, indeed, barely possible. The procedure would be but carrying out the divine "permission," and a fulfilment of "the Rectoral Righteousness" of Him, whose councils are a great deep, not to be accounted for to, or by, us. In summing up what the witches had been doing at Salem Village, during the preceding Summer, Mather says: "The Devil, exhibiting himself ordinarily as a small black man, has decoyed a fearful knot of proud, froward, ignorant, envious and malicious creatures to list themselves in his horrid service by entering their names in a book, by him tendered unto them." "That they, each of them, have, their spectres or Devils, commissioned by them, and representing them, to be the engines of their malice." He enumerates, as facts, all the statements of the "afflicted" witnesses and confessing witches, as to the horrible and monstrous things perpetrated by the spectres of the accused parties; and he applauds the Court, testifying to the successful and beneficial issue of its proceedings. "Our honorable Judges have used, as Judges have heretofore done, the spectral evidence, to introduce their further enquiries into the lives of the persons accused; and they have, thereupon, by the wonderful Providence of God, been so strengthened with other evidences, that some of the Witch-gang have been fairly executed."--_Pages 41, 43._ The language of Cotton Mather, as applied to those who had suffered, as witches, "a fearful knot of proud, froward, ignorant, envious and malicious creatures--a Witch-gang,"--is rather hard, as coming from a Minister who, as the Reviewer asserts, had officiated in their death scenes, witnessed their devout and Christian expressions and deportment, and been their comforter, consoler, counsellor and friend. The dissatisfaction that pervaded the public mind, about the time of the last executions at Salem, which Phips describes, was so serious, that both the Mathers were called in to allay it. The father also, at the request of the Ministers, wrote a book, entitled, _Cases of Conscience, concerning Evil Spirits, personating men, Witchcrafts, &c._, the general drift of which is against spectral evidence. He says: "Spectres are Devils, in the shape of persons, either living or dead." Speaking of bewitched persons, he says: "What they affirm, concerning others, is not to be taken for evidence. Whence had they this supernatural sight? It must needs be either from Heaven or from Hell. If from Heaven (as Elisha's servant and Balaam's ass could discern Angels) let their testimony be received. But if they had this knowledge from Hell, though there may possibly be truth in what they affirm, they are not legal witnesses: for the Law of God allows of no revelation from any other Spirit but himself. _Isa._, viii., 19. It is a sin against God, to make use of the Devil's help to know that which cannot be otherwise known; and I testify against it, as a great transgression, which may justly provoke the Holy One of Israel, to let loose Devils on the whole land. _Luke_, iv., 38." After referring to a couple of writers on the subject, the very next sentence is this: "Although the Devil's accusations may be so far regarded as to cause an enquiry into the truth of things, _Job_, i., 11, 12, and ii., 5, 6; yet not so as to be an evidence or ground of conviction." It appears therefore, that Increase Mather, while writing with much force and apparent vehemence against spectral evidence, still in reality countenanced its introduction, as a basis of "enquiry into the truth of things," preliminary to other evidence. This was, after all, to use the form of thought of these writers, letting the Devil into the case; and that was enough, from the nature of things, in the then state of wild superstition and the blind delusions of the popular mind, to give to spectral evidence the controlling sway it had in the Salem trials, and would necessarily have, every where, when introduced at all. In a Postscript to _Cases of Conscience_, Increase Mather says that he hears that "some have taken up a notion," that there was something contradictory between his views and those of his son, set forth in the _Wonders of the Invisible World_. "Tis strange that such imaginations should enter into the minds of men." He goes on to say he had read and approved of his son's book, before it was printed; and falls back, as both of them always did, when pressed, upon the _Advice_ of the Ministers, of the fifteenth of June, in which, he says, they concurred. There can be no manner of doubt that the "strange" opinion did prevail, at the time, and has ever since, that the father and son did entertain very different sentiments about the Salem proceedings. The precise form of that difference is not easily ascertained. The feelings, so natural and proper, on both sides, belonging to the relation they sustained to each other, led them to preserve an appearance of harmony, especially in whatever was committed to the press. Then, again, the views they each entertained were in themselves so inconsistent, that it was not difficult to persuade themselves that they were substantially similar. There was much in the father, for the son to revere: there was much in the son, for the father to admire. Besides, the habitual style in which they and the Ministers of that day indulged, of saying and unsaying, on the same page--putting a proposition and then linking to it a countervailing one--covered their tracks to each other and to themselves. This is their apology; and none of them needs it more than Cotton Mather. He was singularly blind to logical sequence. With wonderful power over language, he often seems not to appreciate the import of what he is saying; and to this defect, it is agreeable to think, much, if not all, that has the aspect of a want of fairness and even truthfulness, in his writings may be attributed. As associate Ministers of the same congregation, it was desirable for the Mathers to avoid being drawn into a conflicting attitude, on any matter of importance. Drake, however, in his _History of Boston_, (_p. 545_) says that there was supposed, at the formation of the New North Church, in that place, in 1712, to have been a jealousy between them. There were, indeed, many points of dissimilarity, as well as of similarity, in their culture, experience, manners, and ways; and men conversant with them, at the time, may have noticed a difference in their judgments and expressions, relating to the witchcraft affair, of which no knowledge has come to us, except the fact, that it was so understood at the time. Cotton Mather brought all his ability to bear in preparing the _Wonders of the Invisible World_. It is marked throughout by his peculiar genius, and constructed with great ingenuity and elaboration; but it was "water spilt on the ground." So far as the end, for which it was designed, is regarded, it died before it saw the light. XIII. THE COURT OF OYER AND TERMINER BROUGHT TO A SUDDEN END. SIR WILLIAM PHIPS. When Sir William Phips went to the eastward, it was expected that his absence would be prolonged to the twelfth of October. We cannot tell exactly when he returned; probably some days before the twelfth. Writing on the fourteenth, he says, that before any application was made to him for the purpose, he had put a stop to the proceedings of the Court. He probably signified, informally, to the Judges, that they must not meet on the day to which they had adjourned. Brattle, writing on the eighth, had not heard any thing of the kind. But the Rev. Samuel Torrey of Weymouth, who was in full sympathy with the prosecutors, had heard of it on the seventh, as appears by this entry in Sewall's Diary: "OCT. 7^th, 1692. Mr. Torrey seems to be of opinion, that the Court of Oyer and Terminer should go on, regulating any thing that may have been amiss, when certainly found to be so." Sewall and Stoughton were among the principal friends of Torrey; and he, probably, had learned from them, Phips's avowed purpose to stop the proceedings of the Court, in the witchcraft matter. The Court, however, was allowed to sit, in other cases, as it held a trial in Boston, on the tenth, in a capital case of the ordinary kind. The purpose of the Governor gradually became known. Danforth, in a conversation with Sewall, at Cambridge, on the fifteenth, expressed the opinion that the witchcraft trials ought not to proceed any further. It is not unlikely that Phips, while at the eastward, had received some communication that hastened his return. He describes the condition of things, as he found it. We know that the lives of twenty people had been taken away, one of them a Minister of the Gospel. Two Ministers had been accused, one of them the Pastor of the Old South Church; the name of the other is not known. A hundred were in prison; about two hundred more were under accusation, including some men of great estates in Boston, the mother-in-law of one of the Judges, Corwin, and a member of the family of Increase Mather, although, as he says, in no way related to him. A Magistrate, who was a member of the House of Assembly, had fled for his life; and Phips's trusted naval commander, a man of high standing in the Church and in society, as well as in the service, after having been committed to Jail, had escaped to parts unknown. More than all, the Governor's wife had been cried out upon. We can easily imagine his state of mind. Sir William Phips was noted for the sudden violence of his temper. Mather says that he sometimes "showed choler enough." Hutchinson says that "he was of a benevolent, friendly disposition; at the same time quick and passionate;" and, in illustration of the latter qualities, he relates that he got into a fisticuff fight with the Collector of the Port, on the wharf, handling him severely; and that, having high words, in the street, with a Captain of the Royal Navy, "the Governor made use of his cane and broke Short's head." When his Lady told her story to him, and pictured the whole scene of the "strange ferment" in the domestic and social circles of Boston and throughout the country, it was well for the Chief-justice, the Judges, and perhaps his own Ministers, that they were not within the reach of those "blows," with which, as Mather informs us, in the _Life of Phips_, the rough sailor was wont, when the gusts of passion were prevailing, to "chastise incivilities," without reference to time or place, rank or station. But, as was his wont, the storm of wrath soon subsided; his purpose, however, under the circumstances, as brave as it was wise and just, was, as the result showed, unalterable. He communicated to the Judges, personally, that they must sit no more, at Salem or elsewhere, to try cases of witchcraft; and that no more arrests must be made, on that charge. Mather's book, all ready as it was for the press, thus became labor thrown away. It was not only rendered useless for the purpose designed, but a most serious difficulty obstructed its publication. Phips forbade the "printing of any discourses, one way or another;" and the _Wonders_ had incorporated in it some Sermons, impregnated, through and through, with combustible matter, in Phips's view, likely to kindle an inextinguishable flame. All that could be done was to keep still, in the hope that he would become more malleable. In the meanwhile, public business called him away, perhaps to Rhode Island or Connecticut, from the eighteenth to the twenty-seventh of October. In his absence, whether in consequence of movements he had put in train, or solely from what had become known of his views, the circumstance occurred which is thus related in Sewall's Diary--the Legislature was then in Session: "OCT. 26, 1692. A Bill is sent in about calling a Fast and Convocation of Ministers, that may be led in the right way, as to the Witchcrafts. The season, and manner of doing it, is such, that the Court of Oyer and Terminer count themselves thereby dismissed. 29 nos & 33 yeas to the Bill. Capt. Bradstreet, and Lieut. True, Wm. Hutchins, and several other interested persons, in the affirmative." The course of Nathaniel Saltonstall, of Haverhill, and the action in the Legislature of the persons here named, entitle the Merrimac towns of Essex-county to the credit of having made the first public and effectual resistance to the fanaticism and persecutions of 1692. The passage of this Bill, in the House of Representatives, shows how the public mind had been changed, since the June Session. Dudley Bradstreet was a Magistrate and member from Andover, son of the old Governor, and, with his wife, had found safety from prosecution by flight; Henry True, a member from Salisbury, was son-in-law of Mary Bradbury, who had been condemned to death; Samuel Hutchins, (inadvertently called "Wm.," by Sewall) was a member from Haverhill, and connected by marriage with a family, three of whom were tried for their lives. Sewall says there were "several other" members of the House, interested in like manner. This shows into what high circles the accusers had struck. It appears, by the same Diary, that on the twenty-seventh, Cotton Mather preached the Thursday Lecture, from _James_, i., 4. The day of trial was then upon him and his fellow-actors; and patience was inculcated as the duty of the hour. The Diary relates that at a meeting of the Council, on the twenty-eighth, in the afternoon, Sewall, "desired to have the advice of the Governor and Council, as to the sitting of the Court of Oyer and Terminer, next week; said, should move it no more; great silence prevailed, as if should say, Do not go." The entry does not state whether Phips was present; as, however, the time fixed for his recent brief absence had expired, probably he was in his seat. The following mishap, described by Sewall, as occurring that day, perhaps detained the Deputy-governor: "OCT. 28. Lt. Gov^r, coming over the causey, is, by reason of the high tide, so wet, that is fain to go to bed, till sends for dry clothes to Dorchester." The "great silence" was significant of the embarrassment in which they were placed, and their awe of the "choler" of the Governor. The Diary gives the following account of the Session the next day, at which, (as Sewall informs us,) the Lieutenant-governor was not present: "OCT. 29. Mr. Russel asked, whether the Court of Oyer and Terminer should sit, expressing some fear of inconvenience by its fall. Governor said, it must fall." Thus died the Court of Oyer and Terminer. Its friends cherished, to the last, the hope that Sir William might be placated, and possibly again brought under control; but it vanished, when the emphatic and resolute words, reported by Sewall, were uttered. The firmness and force of character of the Governor are worthy of all praise. Indeed, the illiterate and impulsive sailor has placed himself, in history, far in front of all the honored Judges and learned Divines, of his day. Not one of them penetrated the whole matter as he did, when his attention was fully turned to it, and his feelings enlisted, to decide, courageously and righteously, the question before him. He saw that no life was safe while the evidence of the "afflicted persons" was received, "either to the committing or trying" of any persons. He thus broke through the meshes which had bound Judges and Ministers, the writers of books and the makers of laws; and swept the whole fabric of "spectral testimony" away, whether as matter of "enquiry" and "presumption," or of "conviction." The ship-carpenter of the Kennebec laid the axe to the root of the tree. The following extract from a letter of Sir William Phips, just put into my hands, and for which I am indebted to Mr. Goodell, substantiates the conclusions to which I have been led. "_Governor Phips to the Lords of the Committee of Trade and Plantations, 3 April, 1693._ "MAY IT PLEASE YOUR LORDSHIPS: "I have intreated M^r Blathwayte to lay before your Lordships several letters, wherein I have given a particular account of my stopping a supposed witchcraft, which had proved fatall to many of their Maj^ties good subjects, had there not been a speedy end putt thereto; for a stop putt to the proceedings against such as were accused, hath caused the thing itself to cease." This shows that, addressing officially his Home Government, he assumed the responsibility of having "stopped and put a speedy end to the proceedings;" that he had no great faith in the doctrines then received touching the reality of witchcraft; and that he was fully convinced that, if he had allowed the trials to go on, and the inflammation of the public mind to be kept up by "discourses," the bloody tragedy would have been prolonged, and "proved fatal to many good" people. There are two men--neither of them belonging to the class of scholars or Divines; both of them guided by common sense, good feeling, and a courageous and resolute spirit--who stand alone, in the scenes of the witchcraft delusions. NATHANIEL SALTONSTALL, who left the Council and the Court, the day the Ministers' _Advice_, to go on with the prosecutions, was received, and never appeared again until that _Advice_ was abandoned and repudiated; and Sir WILLIAM PHIPS, who stamped it out beneath his feet. But how with Cotton Mather's Book, the _Wonders of the Invisible World_? On the eleventh of October, Stoughton and Sewall signed a paper, printed in the book, [_p. 88_] endorsing its contents, especially as to "matters of fact and evidence" and the "methods of conviction used in the proceedings of the Court at Salem." The certificate repeats the form of words, so often used in connection with the book, that it was written "at the direction of His Excellency the Governor," without, as in all cases, specifying who, whether Phips or Stoughton, was the Governor referred to. As all the Judges were near at hand, and as the certificate related to the proceedings before them, it is quite observable that only the two mentioned signed it. As they were present, in the private conference, with Cotton Mather, at the house of one of them, on the twenty-second of September, when its preparation for publication was finally arranged, they could not well avoid signing it. The times were critical; and the rest of the Judges, knowing the Governor's feelings, thought best not to appear. Of the three other persons, at that conference, Hathorne, it is true, was a Judge of that Court, but it is doubtful whether he often, or ever, took his seat as such; besides, he was too experienced and cautious a public man, unnecessarily to put his hand to such a paper, when it was known, as it was probably to him, that Sir William Phips had forbidden publications of the kind. There is another curious document, in the _Wonders_--a letter from Stoughton to Mather, highly applauding the book, in which he acknowledges his particular obligations to him for writing it, as "more nearly and highly concerned" than others, considering his place in the Court, expressing in detail his sense of the great value of the work, "at this juncture of time," and concluding thus: "I do therefore make it my particular and earnest Request unto you, that, as soon as may be, you will commit the same unto the press, accordingly." It is signed, without any official title of distinction, simply "WILLIAM STOUGHTON," and is _without date_. It is singular, if Phips was the person who requested it to be written and was the "Excellency" who authorized its publication, that it was left to William Stoughton to "request" its being put to press. The foregoing examination of dates and facts seems, almost, to compel the conclusion, to be drawn also from his letter, that Sir William Phips really had nothing whatever to do with procuring the preparation or sanctioning the publication of the _Wonders of the Invisible World_. The same is true as to the request to the Ministers, for their _Advice_, dated the fifteenth of June. It was "laid before the Judges;" and was, undoubtedly, a response to an application from them. Having, very improperly, it must be confessed, given the whole matter of the trials over to Stoughton, and being engrossed in other affairs, it is quite likely that he knew but little of what had been going on, until his return from the eastward, in October. And his frequent and long absences, leaving Stoughton, so much of the time, with all the functions and titles of Governor devolved upon him, led to speaking of the latter as "His Excellency." When bearing this title and acting as Governor, for the time being, the Chief-justice, with the side Judges--all of them members of the Council, and in number meeting the requirement in the Charter for a quorum, seven--may have been considered, as substantially, "The Governor and Council." Thinking it more than probable that, in this way, great wrong has been done to the memory of an honest and noble-hearted man, I have endeavored to set things in their true light. The perplexities, party entanglements, personal collisions, and engrossing cares that absorbed the attention of Sir William Phips, during the brief remainder of his life, and the little interest he felt in such things, prevented his noticing the false position in which he had been placed by the undistinguishing use of titular phrases. Judge Sewall's Diary contains an entry that, also, sheds light upon the position of the Mathers. It will be borne in mind, that Elisha Cook was the colleague of Increase Mather, as Colonial Agents in London. Cook refused assent to the new Charter, and became the leader of the anti-Mather party. He was considered an opponent of the witchcraft prosecutions, although out of the country at the time. "TUESDAY, NOV. 15, 1692. M^r Cook keeps a Day of Thanksgiving for his safe arrival." * * * [_Many mentioned as there, among them Mr. Willard._] "Mr. Allen preached from Jacob's going to Bethel, * * * Mr. Mather not there, nor Mr. Cotton Mather. The good Lord unite us in his fear, and remove our animosities." The manner in which Sewall distinguished the two Mathers confirms the views presented on pages 37, 38. It may be remarked, that, up to this time, Sewall seems to have been in full sympathy with Stoughton and Mather. He was, however, beginning to indulge in conversations that indicate a desire to feel the ground he was treading. After a while, he became thoroughly convinced of his error; and there are scattered, in the margins of his Diary, expressions of much sensibility at the extent to which he had been misled. Over against an entry, giving an account of his presence at an Examination before Magistrates, of whom he was one, on the eleventh of April, 1692, at Salem, is the interjection, thrice repeated, "_Vae, Vae, Vae_." At the opening of the year 1692, he inserted, at a subsequent period, this passage: "_Attonitus tamen est, ingens discrimine parvo committi potuisse Nefas._"[4] FOOTNOTES: [4] For the privilege of inspecting and using Judge Sewall's Diary I am indebted to the kindness of the Massachusetts Historical Society: and I would also express my thanks, for similar favors and civilities, to the officers in charge of the Records and Archives in the Massachusetts State House, the Librarian of Harvard University, the Essex Institute, and many individuals, not mentioned in the text, especially those devoted collectors and lovers of our old New England literature, Samuel G. Drake and John K. Wiggin. XIV. COTTON MATHER'S WRITINGS SUBSEQUENT TO THE WITCHCRAFT PROSECUTIONS. I propose, now, to enquire into the position Cotton Mather occupied, and the views he expressed, touching the matter, after the witchcraft prosecutions had ceased and the delusion been dispelled from the minds of other men. During the Winter of 1692 and 1693, between one and two hundred prisoners, including confessing witches, remained in Jail, at Salem, Ipswich, and other places. A considerable number were in the Boston Jail. It seems, from the letter to Secretary Allyn of Connecticut, that, during that time, the Mathers were in communication with them, and receiving from them the names of persons whose spectres, they declared, they had seen and suffered from, as employed in the Devil's work. After all that had happened, and the order of Sir William Phips, forbidding attempts to renew the excitement, it is wonderful that the Mathers should continue such practices. In the latter part of the Summer of 1693, they were both concerned in the affair of Margaret Rule; and Cotton Mather prepared, and put into circulation, an elaborate account of it, some extracts from which have been presented, and which will be further noticed, in another connection. His next work, in the order of time, which I shall consider, is his _Life of Sir William Phips_, printed in London, in 1697, and afterwards included in the _Magnalia_, also published in London, a few years afterwards, constituting the last part of the Second Book. _The Life of Phips_ is, perhaps, the most elaborate and finished of all Mather's productions; and "adorned," as his uncle Nathaniel Mather says, in a commendatory note, "with a very grateful variety of learning." In it, Sir William, who had died, at London, three years before, is painted in glowing colors, as one of the greatest of conquerors and rulers, "dropped, as it were, from the Machine of Heaven;" "for his exterior, he was one tall, beyond the common lot of men; and thick, as well as tall, and strong as well as thick. He was, in all respects, exceedingly robust, and able to conquer such difficulties of diet and of travel, as would have killed most men alive;" "he was well set, and he was therewithall of a very comely, though a very manly, countenance." He is described as of "a most incomparable generosity," "of a forgiving spirit." His faults are tenderly touched; "upon certain affronts, he has made sudden returns, that have shewed choler enough; and he has, by blow, as well as by word, chastised incivilities." It is remarkable that Mather should have laid himself out, to such an extent of preparation and to such heights of eulogy, as this work exhibits. It is dedicated to the Earl of Bellamont, just about to come over, as Phips's successor. Mather held in his hand a talisman of favor, influence, and power. In the Elegy which concludes the _Life_, are lines like these: "Phips, our great friend, our wonder, and our glory, The terror of our foes, the world's rare story, Or but name Phips, more needs not be expressed, Both Englands, and next ages, tell the rest." The writer of this _Life_ had conferred the gift of an immortal name upon one Governor of New England, and might upon another. But with all this panegyric, he does not seem to have been careful to be just to the memory of his hero. The reader is requested, at this point, to turn back to pages 23, 24, of this article, and examine the paragraph, quoted from the _Life of Phips_, introducing the return of _Advice_ from the Ministers. I have shown, in that connection, how deceptive the expression "arriving to his Government" is. In reporting the _Advice_ of the Ministers, in the _Life of Phips_, Mather omits the paragraphs I have placed within brackets [_p. 21, 22_]--the _first_, _second_ and _eighth_. The omission of these paragraphs renders the document, as given by Mather, an absolute misrepresentation of the transaction, and places Phips in the attitude of having disregarded the advice of the Ministers, in suffering the trials to proceed as they did; throwing upon his memory a load of infamy, outweighing all the florid and extravagant eulogies showered upon him, in the _Life_: verifying and fulfilling the apprehensions he expressed in his letter of the fourteenth of October, 1692: "I know my enemies are seeking to turn it all upon me." The Reviewer says that "Mr. Mather did not profess to quote the whole _Advice_, but simply made extracts from it." He professed to give what the Ministers "declared." I submit to every honorable mind, whether what Mather printed, omitting the _first_, _second_ and _eighth_ Sections, was a fair statement of what the Ministers "declared." The paragraphs he selected, appear, on their face, to urge caution and even delay, in the proceedings. They leave this impression on the general reader, and have been so regarded from that day to this. The artifice, by which the responsibility for what followed was shifted, from the Ministers, upon Phips and the Court, has, in a great measure, succeeded. I trust that I have shown that the clauses and words that seem to indicate caution, had very little force, in that direction; but that, when the disguising veil of an artful phraseology is removed, they give substantial countenance to the proceedings of the Court, throughout. I desire, at this point, to ask the further attention of the reader to Mather's manner of referring to the _Advice of the Ministers_. In his _Wonders_, he quotes the _eighth_ and _second_ Articles of it (_Pages 12, 55_), in one instance, ascribing the _Advice_ to "Reverend persons," "men of God," "gracious men," and, in the other, characterizing it as "gracious words." He also, in the same work, quotes the _sixth_ Article, _omitting the words I have placed in brackets, without any indication of an omission_. Writing, in 1692, when the delusion was at its height, and for the purpose of keeping the public mind up to the work of the prosecutions, he gloried chiefly in the _first_, _second_, and _eighth_ Articles, and brought them alone forward, in full. The others he passed over, with the exception of the _sixth_, from which he struck out the central sentence--that having the appearance of endorsing the views of those opposed to spectral testimony. But, in 1697, when the _Life of Phips_ was written, circumstances had changed. It was apparent, then, to all, even those most unwilling to realize the fact, that the whole transaction of the witchcraft prosecutions in Salem was doomed to perpetual condemnation; and it became expedient to drop out of sight, forever, if possible, the _second_ and _eighth_ articles, and reproduce the _sixth_, _entire_. Considering the unfair view of the import of the _Advice_, in the _Life of Phips_, and embodied in the _Magnalia_--a work, which, with all its defects, inaccuracies, and absurdities, is sure of occupying a conspicuous place in our Colonial literature--I said: "unfortunately for the reputation of Cotton Mather, Hutchinson has preserved the _Address of the Ministers_, entire." Regarding the document published by Mather in the light of a historical imposture, I expressed satisfaction, that its exposure was provided in a work, sure of circulation and preservation, equally, to say the least, with the _Life of Phips_ or the _Magnalia_. The Reviewer, availing himself of the opportunity, hereupon pronounces me ignorant of the fact that the "_Advice_, entire," was published by Increase Mather at the end of his _Cases of Conscience_; and, in his usual style--not, I think, usual, in the _North American Review_--speaks thus--it is a specimen of what is strown through the article: "Mr. Upham should have been familiar enough with the original sources of information on the subject, to have found this _Advice_ in print, seventy-four years before Hutchinson's _History_ appeared." Of course, neither I, nor any one else, can be imagined to suppose that Hutchinson invented the document. It was pre-existent, and at his hand. It was not to the purpose to say where he found it. I wonder this Reviewer did not tell the public, that I had _never seen_, _read_, or _heard of_ Calef; for, to adopt his habit of reasoning, if I had been acquainted with that writer, my ignorance would have been enlightened, as Calef would have informed me that "the whole of the Minister's advice and answer is printed in _Cases of Conscience_, the last pages." That only which finds a place in works worthy to endure, and of standard value, is sure of perpetual preservation. Hutchinson's _History of Massachusetts_ is a work of this description. Whatever is committed to its custody will stand the test of time. This cannot be expected of that class of tracts or books to which _Cases of Conscience_ belongs, copies of which can hardly be found, and not likely to justify a separate re-publication. It has, indeed, not many years ago, been reprinted in England, in a series of _Old Authors_, tacked on to the _Wonders of the Invisible World_. But few copies have reached this country; and only persons of peculiar, it may almost be said, eccentric, tastes, would care to procure it. It will be impossible to awaken an interest in the general reading public for such works. They are forbidding in their matter, unintelligible in their style, obscure in their import and drift, and pervaded by superstitions and absurdities that have happily passed away, never, it is to be hoped, again to enter the realm of theology, philosophy, or popular belief; and will perish by the hand of time, and sink into oblivion. If this present discussion had not arisen, and the "_Advice_, entire," had not been given by Hutchinson, the _suppressio veri_, perpetrated by Cotton Mather, would, perhaps, have become permanent history. In reference to the _Advice of the Ministers_, the Reviewer, in one part of his article, seems to complain thus: "Mr. Upham has never seen fit to print this paper;" in other parts, he assails me from the opposite direction, and in a manner too serious, in the character of the assault, to be passed over. In my book, (_ii., 267_) I thus speak of the _Advice of the Ministers_, referring to it, in a note to p. 367, in similar terms: "The response of the reverend gentlemen, while urging in general terms the importance of caution and circumspection in the methods of examination, decidedly and earnestly recommended that the proceedings should be vigorously carried on." It is a summary, in general and brief terms, _in my own language_, of the _import_ of the whole document, covering both sets of its articles. Hutchinson condenses it in similar terms, as do Calef and Douglas. I repeat, and beg it to be marked, that I do _not quote it_, in _whole_ or _in part_, but only give its import in my own words. I claim the judgment of the reader, whether I do not give the import of the articles Mather printed in the _Life of Phips_--those pretending to urge caution--as fairly as of the articles he omitted, applauding the Court, and encouraging it to go on. Now, this writer in the _North American Review_ represents to the readers of that journal and to the public, that I have _quoted_ the _Advice of the Ministers_, and, in variety of phrase, rings the charge of unfair and false _quotation_, against me. He uses this language: "If it were such a heinous crime for Cotton Mather, in writing the _Life of Sir William Phips_, to omit three Sections, how will Mr. Upham vindicate his own omissions, when, writing the history of these very transactions and bringing the gravest charges against the characters of the persons concerned, he leaves out seven Sections?" I _quoted_ no Section, and made no _omissions_; and it is therefore utterly unjustifiable to say that I _left out_ any thing. I gave the substance of the Sections Cotton Mather left out, in language nearly identical with that used by Hutchinson and all others. In the same way, I gave the substance of the Sections Mather published, in the very sense he always claimed for them. What I said did not bear the form, nor profess the character, of a _quotation_. In the _Wonders of the Invisible World_, written in 1692, when the prosecutions were in full blast and Mather was glorying in them, and for the purpose of prolonging them, the only Section he saw fit, in a particular connection, to quote, was the SECOND. He prefaced it thus: "They were some of the Gracious Words inserted in the _Advice_, which many of the neighboring Ministers did this Summer humbly lay before our Honorable Judges." Let it be noted, by the way, that when he thus praised the document, its authorship had not been avowed. Let it further be noted, that it is here let slip that the paper was _laid before the Judges_, not Phips; showing that it was a response to _them_, not him. Let it be still further noted, that the Section which he thus cited, in 1692, is one of those which, when the tide had turned, he left out, in 1697. The Reviewer, referring to Mather's quotation of the second Section of the _Advice_, in the _Wonders_, says: "he printed it in full, which Mr. Upham has never done;" and following out the strange misrepresentation, he says: "Mr. Upham does not print any part of the eighth Section, as the Ministers adopted it. He suppresses the essential portions, changes words, and, by interpolation, states that the Ministers 'decidedly,' 'earnestly,' and 'vehemently,' recommended that the 'proceedings' should be vigorously carried on. He who quotes in this manner needs other evidence than that produced by Mr. Upham to entitle him to impeach Mr. Mather's integrity." In another place he says, pursuing the charge of quoting falsely, as to my using the word "proceedings," "the word is not to be found in the _Advice_." The eighth Section recommends "the speedy and vigorous prosecutions of such as have rendered themselves obnoxious." In a brief reference to the subject, I use the words "speedily and vigorously," marking them as quoted, although their form was changed by the structure of the sentence of my own in which they appear. Beyond this, I have made no _quotations_, in my book, of the _Advice_--not a Section, nor sentence, nor clause, nor line, is a quotation, nor pretends to be. Without characterising what the Reviewer has done, in charging me with _suppression of essential portions_, _interpolation_, and not _printing_ in full, or correctly, what the Ministers or any body else said, my duty is discharged, by showing that there is no truth in the charge--no foundation or apology for it. The last of the works of Cotton Mather I shall examine, in this scrutiny of his retrospective opinions and position, relating to the witchcraft prosecutions, is the _Magnalia_, printed at London, in 1702. He had become wise enough, at that time, not to commit himself more than he could help. The Rev. John Hale, of Beverly, died in May, 1700. He had taken an active part in the proceedings at Salem, in 1692, having, as he says, from his youth, been "trained up in the knowledge and belief of most of the principles" upon which the prosecutions were conducted, and had held them "with a kind of implicit faith." Towards the close of the Trials, his view underwent a change; and, after the lapse of five years, he prepared a treatise on the subject. It is a candid, able, learned, and every-way commendable performance, adhering to the general belief in witchcraft, but pointing out the errors in the methods of procedure in the Trials at Salem, showing that the principles there acted upon were fallacious. The book was not printed until 1702. Cotton Mather, having access to Mr. Hale's manuscript, professedly made up from it his account of the witchcraft transactions of 1692, inserted in the _Magnalia_, Book VI., Page 79. He adopts the narrative part of the work, substantially, avoiding much discussion of the topics upon which Mr. Hale had laid himself out. He cites, indeed, some passages from the argumentative part, containing marvellous statements, but does not mention that Mr. Hale labored, throughout, to show that those and other like matters, which had been introduced at the Trials, as proofs of spectral agency, were easily resolvable into the visions and vagaries of a "deluded imagination," "a phantasy in the brain," "phantasma before the eyes." Mr. Hale limits the definition of a witch to the following: "Who is to be esteemed a capital witch among Christians? viz.: Those that being brought up under the means of the knowledge of the true God, yet, being in their right mind or free use of their reason, do knowingly and wittingly depart from the true God, so as to devote themselves unto, and seek for their help from, another God, or the Devil, as did the Devil's Priests and Prophets of old, that were magicians."--_Page 127._ As he had refuted, and utterly discarded, the whole system of evidence connected with spectres of the living or ghosts of the dead, the above definition rescued all but openly profane, abandoned, and God-defying people from being prosecuted for witchcraft. Mather transcribes, as a quotation, what seems to be the foregoing definition, but puts it thus: "A person that, having the free use of reason, doth knowingly and willingly seek and obtain of the Devil, or of any other God, besides the true God Jehovah, an ability to do or know strange things, or things which he cannot by his own humane abilities arrive unto. This person is a witch." The latter part of the definition thus transcribed, has no justification in Hale's language, but is in conflict with the positions in his book. Mather says, "the author spends whole Chapters to prove that there yet is a witch." He omits to state, that he spends twice as many Chapters to prove that the evidence in the Salem cases was not sufficient for that purpose. Upon the whole it can hardly be considered a fair transcript of Mr. Hale's account. He dismisses the subject, once for all, in a curt and almost disrespectful style--"But thus much for this manuscript." Whoever examines the manner in which he, in this way, gets rid of the subject, in the _Magnalia_, must be convinced, I think, that he felt no satisfaction in Mr. Hale's book, nor in the state of things that made it necessary for him to give the whole matter the go-by. If the public mind had retained its fanatical credulity, or if Mather's own share in the delusion of 1692 had been agreeable in the retrospect, it cannot be doubted that it would have afforded THE GREAT THEME, of his great book. All the strange learning, passionate eloquence, and extravagant painting, of its author, would have been lavished upon it; and we should have had another separate Book, with a Hebrew, Greek, or Latin motto or title, which, interpreted, would read _Most Wonderful of Wonders_. In 1692, his language was: "Witchcraft is a business that will not be shammed." In 1700, it was shoved off upon the memory of Mr. Hale, as a business not safe for him, Mather, to meddle with, any longer. It was dropped, as if it burned his fingers. XV. HISTORY OF OPINION AS TO COTTON MATHER'S CONNECTION WITH SALEM WITCHCRAFT. THOMAS BRATTLE. THE PEOPLE OF SALEM VILLAGE. JOHN HALL. JOHN HIGGINSON. MICHAEL WIGGLESWORTH. Such passages as the following are found in the article of the _North American Review_: "These views, respecting Mr. Mather's connection with the Salem Trials, are to be found in no publication of a date prior to 1831, when Mr. Upham's _Lectures_ were published." "These charges have been repented by Mr. Quincy, in his _History of Harvard University_, by Mr. Peabody, in his _Life of Cotton Mather_, by Mr. Bancroft, and by nearly all historical writers, since that date." "An examination of the historical text-books, used in our schools, will show when these ideas originated." The position taken by the Reviewer, let it be noticed, is, that the idea of Cotton Mather's taking a leading part in the witchcraft prosecutions of 1692, "_originated_" with me, in a work printed in 1831; and that I have given "the cue" to all subsequent writers on the subject. Now what are the facts? Cotton Mather himself is a witness that the idea was entertained at the time. In his Diary, after endeavoring to explain away the admitted fact that he was the eulogist and champion of the Judges, while the Trials were pending, he says: "Merely, as far as I can learn, for this reason, the mad people through the country, under a fascination on their spirits equal to that which energumens had on their bodies, reviled me as if I had been the doer of all the hard things that were done in the prosecution of the witchcraft." He repeats the complaint, over and over again, in various forms and different writings. Indeed, it could not have been otherwise, than that such should have been the popular impression and conviction. He was, at that time, bringing before the people, most conspicuously, the _second_ and _eighth_ Articles of the _Ministers' Advice_, urging on the prosecutions. His deportment and harangue at Witch-hill, at the execution of Burroughs and Proctor; his confident and eager endorsement, as related by Sewall, of the sentences of the Court, at the moment when all others were impressed with silent solemnity, by the spectacle of five persons, professing their innocency, just launched into eternity; his efforts to prolong the prosecutions, in preparing the book containing the trials of the "Malefactors" who had suffered; and his zeal, on all occasions, to "vindicate the Court" and applaud the Judges; all conspired in making it the belief of the whole people that he was, pre-eminently, answerable for the "hard things that were done in the prosecutions of the witchcraft." That it was the general opinion, at home and abroad, can be abundantly proved. It must be borne in mind, as is explained in my book, that a general feeling prevailed, immediately, and for some years, after the witchcraft "judicial murders," that the whole subject was too humble to be thought of, or ever mentioned; and as nearly the whole community, either by acting in favor of the proceedings or failing to act against them, had become more or less responsible for them, there was an almost universal understanding to avoid crimination or recrimination. Besides, so far as Cotton Mather was concerned, his professional and social position, great talents and learning, and capacity with a disposition for usefulness, joined to the reverence then felt for Ministers prevented his being assailed even by those who most disapproved his course. Increase Mather was President of the College and head of the Clergy. The prevalent impression that _he_ had, to some extent, disapproved of the proceedings, made men unwilling to wound his feelings by severe criticisms upon his son; for, whatever differences might be supposed to exist between them, all well-minded persons respected their natural and honorable sensitiveness to each other's reputation. Reasons like these prevented open demonstrations against both of them. Nevertheless, it is easy to gather sufficient evidence to prove my point. Thomas Brattle was a Boston merchant of great munificence and eminent talents and attainments. His name is perpetuated by "Brattle-street Church," of which he was the chief founder. Dr. John Eliot, in his _Biographical Dictionary_, speaks of him thus--referring to his letter on the witchcraft of 1692, dated October 8, of that year: "Mr. Brattle wrote an account of those transactions, which was too plain and just to be published in those unhappy times, but has been printed since; and which cannot be read without feeling sentiments of esteem for a man, who indulged a freedom of thought becoming a Christian and philosopher. He, from the beginning, opposed the prejudices of the people, the proceedings of the Court, and the perverse zeal of those Ministers of the Gospel, who, by their preaching and conduct, caused such real distress to the community. They, who called him an infidel, were obliged to acknowledge that his wisdom shone with uncommon lustre." His brother, William Brattle, with whom he seems to have been in entire harmony of opinion, on all subjects, was long an honored instructor and Fellow of Harvard College, and Minister of the First Church, at Cambridge. He was celebrated here and in England, for his learning, and endeared to all men by his virtues. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of London. Jeremiah Dummer, as well qualified to pronounce such an opinion as any man of his time, places him as a preacher above all his contemporaries, in either Old or New England. The Brattles were both politically opposed to the Mathers. But, as matters then stood, in view of the prevailing infatuation--particularly as the course upon which Phips had determined was not then known--caution and prudence were deemed necessary; and the letter was _confidential_. Indeed, all expressions of criticism, on the conduct of the Government, were required to be so. It is a valuable document, justifying the reputation the writer had established in life and has borne ever since. Condemning the methods pursued in the Salem Trials, he says: after stating that "several men, for understanding, judgment, and piety, inferior to few, if any, utterly condemn the proceedings" at Salem, "I shall nominate some of these to you, viz.: the Hon. Simon Bradstreet, Esq., our late Governor; the Hon. Thomas Danforth, our late Deputy-governor; the Rev. Mr. Increase Mather; and the Rev. Mr. Samuel Willard." Bradstreet was ninety years of age, but in the full possession of his mental faculties. In this sense, "his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated." Thirteen years before, when Governor of the Colony, he had refused to order to execution a woman who had been convicted of witchcraft, in a series of trials that had gone through all the Courts, with concurring verdicts, confirmed at an adjudication by the Board of Assistants--as President of which body, it had been his official duty to pass upon her the final sentence of death. Juries, Judges, both branches of the Legislature, and the people, clamored for her execution; but the brave old Governor withstood them all, resolutely and inexorably: an innocent and good woman and the honor of the Colony, at that time, were saved. Mr. Hale informs us that Bradstreet refused to allow the sentence to take effect, for these reasons: that "a spectre doing mischief in her likeness, should not be imputed to her person, as a ground of guilt; and that one single witness to one fact and another single witness to another fact" were not to be esteemed "two witnesses in a matter capital." No Executive Magistrate has left a record more honorable to his name, than that of Bradstreet, on this occasion. If his principles had been heeded, not a conviction could have been obtained, in 1692. It was because of his known opposition, that his two sons were cried out upon and had to fly for their lives. That Brattle was justified in naming Danforth, in this connection, the conversation of that person with Sewall, on the fifteenth of October, proves. It is understood, by many indications, that, although, in former years, inclined to the popular delusions of the day, touching witchcraft, Willard was an opponent of the prosecutions; and Brattle must be regarded as having had means of judging of Increase Mather's views and feelings, on the eighth of October. This singling out of the father, thereby distinguishing him from the son, must, I think, be conclusive evidence, to every man who candidly considers the circumstances of the case and the purport of the document, that Brattle did not consider Cotton Mather entitled to be named in the honored list. Brattle further says: "Excepting Mr. Hale, Mr. Noyes, and Mr. Parris, the Rev. Elders, almost throughout the whole country, are very much dissatisfied." The word "almost," leaves room for others to be placed in the same category with Hale, Noyes, and Parris. The Reviewer argues that because Cotton Mather is not named at all, in either list, therefore he must be counted in the first! The father and son were associate Ministers of the same Church; they shared together a great name, fame, and position; both men of the highest note, here and abroad, conspicuous before all eyes, standing, hand in hand, in all the associations and sentiments of the people, united by domestic ties, similar pursuits, and every form of public action and observation--why did Brattle, in so marked a manner, separate them, holding the one up, in an honorable point of view, and passing over the other, not ever mentioning his name, as the Reviewer observes? If he really disapproved of the prosecutions at Salem--if, as the Reviewer positively states, he "denounced" them--is it not unaccountable that Brattle did not name him with his father? These questions press with especial force upon the Reviewer, under the interpretation he crowds upon the passage from Brattle, I am now to cite. If that interpretation can be allowed, it will, in the face of all that has come to us, make Brattle out to have had a most exalted opinion of Cotton Mather, and render it unaccountable indeed that he did not mention him, in honor, as he did his father and Mr. Willard. The passage is this: "I cannot but highly applaud, and think it our duty to be very thankful for, the endeavours of several Elders, whose lips, I think, should preserve knowledge, and whose counsel should, I think, have been more regarded, in a case of this nature, than as yet it has been: in particular, I cannot but think very honorably of the endeavours of a Rev. person in Boston, whose good affections to his country, in general, and spiritual relation to three of the Judges, in particular, has made him very solicitous and industrious in this matter; and I am fully persuaded, that had his notions and proposals been hearkened to and followed, when those troubles were in their birth, in an ordinary way, they would never have grown unto that height which now they have. He has, as yet, met with little but unkindness, abuse, and reproach, from many men; but, I trust, that in after times, his wisdom and service will find a more universal acknowledgment; and if not, his reward is with the Lord." The learned Editor of the Fifth Volume of the _Massachusetts Historical Collections_, First Series, in a note to this passage (_p. 76_), says: "Supposed to be Mr. Willard." Such has always been the supposition. The Reviewer has undertaken to make it out that Cotton Mather is the person referred to by Brattle. These two men were opposed to each other, in the politics of that period. The course of the Mathers, in connection with the loss of the old, and the establishment of the new, Charter, gave rise to much dissatisfaction; and party divisions were quite acrimonious. The language used by Brattle, applauding the public course of the person of whom he was speaking, would be utterly inexplicable, if applied to Mather. The "endeavours, counsels, notions and proposals," to which he alludes, could not have referred to Mather's plans, which I have attempted to explain, because described by Brattle as being in "an ordinary way." "Unkindness, abuse, and reproach" find an explanation in the fact, that Willard was "cried out upon" and brought into peril of reputation and life, by the creatures of the prosecution. The monstrousness of the supposition that Mather was referred to, would hardly be heightened if it should appear that Brattle supplied Calef with materials in his controversy with Mather. The language, throughout, is in conformity with the political relations between Brattle and Willard. The side the latter had espoused was put beyond question by the appearing, on the fifteenth of November, at Elisha Cook's Thanksgiving; and that was the same occupied by Brattle. But the question is settled by the fact that _three of the Judges_ belonged to Willard's Congregation and Church, whereas only _one_ belonged to the Church of the Mathers. The Reviewer says: "We do not assert that this inference is not the correct one." But, in spite of this substantial admission, with that strange propensity to overturn all the conclusions of history to glorify Cotton Mather, at the expense of others, and even, in this instance, against his own better judgment, he labors to make us believe--what he himself does not venture to "assert"--that the "spiritual relation" in which Mather stood to three of the Judges, was not, what, in those days and ever since, it has been understood to mean, that of a Pastor with his flock, but nothing more than intimate friendship. If this was what Brattle meant, he would have said at least _four_ of the Judges, for, at that time, Sewall was in full accord with Mather. They took counsel together. It was at the house of Sewall that the preparation of the _Wonders of the Invisible World_ was finally arranged with Mather; and he, alone, of all the side Judges, united with Stoughton, some days after the date of Brattle's letter, in endorsing and commending that work. If the expression, "spiritual relations," is divorced from its proper sense, and made to mean sympathy of opinion or agreement in counsels, it ill becomes the Reviewer to try to make it out that Mather held that relation with _any of the Judges_. He represents him, throughout his article, as at sword's points with the Court. He says that he "denounced" its course, "as illegal, uncharitable, and cruel." There is, indeed, not a shadow of foundation for this statement, as to Mather's relation to the Court; but it absolutely precludes the Reviewer from such an interpretation as he attempts, of the expression of Brattle. The Reviewer says: "If Mr. Mather is not alluded to, in this paragraph, he is omitted altogether from the narrative, except as spiritual adviser of the persons condemned." This is an instance of the way in which this writer establishes history. Without any and against all evidence, in the license of his imagination alone, he had thrown out the suggestion that Mather attended the executions, as the ministerial comforter and counsellor of the sufferers. Then, by a sleight of hand, he transforms this "phantasy" of his own brain into an unquestionable fact. If Mr. Mather is not alluded to in the following passage from Brattle's letter, who is? "I cannot but admire, that any should go with their distempered friends and relatives to the afflicted children to know what these distempered friends ail; whether they are not bewitched; who it is that afflicts them; and the like. It is true, I know no reason why these afflicted may not be consulted as well as any other, if so be that it was only their natural and ordinary knowledge that was had recourse to; but it is not on this notion that these afflicted children are sought unto; but as they have a supernatural knowledge--a knowledge which they obtain by their holding correspondence with spectres or evil spirits--as they themselves grant. This consulting of these afflicted children, as abovesaid, seems to me a very gross evil, a real abomination, not fit to be known in New England, and yet is a thing practiced, not only by Tom and John--I mean the ruder and more ignorant sort--but by many who profess high, and pass among us for some of the better sort. This is that which aggravates the evil and makes it heinous and tremendous; and yet this is not the worst of it, for, as sure as I now write to you, even some of our civil leaders and spiritual teachers, who, I think, should punish and preach down such sorcery and wickedness, do yet allow of, encourage, yea, and practice, this very abomination. "I know there are several worthy gentlemen, in Salem, who account this practice as an abomination; have trembled to see the methods of this nature which others have used; and have declared themselves to think the practice to be very evil and corrupt; but all avails little with the abettors of the said practice." Does not this stern condemnation fall on the head of the "spiritual teacher," who received constant communications from the spectral world, fastening the charge of diabolical confederacy upon other persons, in confidential interviews with confessing witches--not to mention the Goodwin girls;--whose boast it was, "it may be no man living has had more people, under preternatural and astonishing circumstances, cast by the Providence of God into his more particular care than I have had;" and that he had kept to himself information thus obtained, which, if he had not suppressed it, would have led to the conviction of "such witches as ought to die;" who sought to have the exclusive right of receiving such communications conferred upon him, "by the authority;" who, at that time, was holding this intercourse with persons pretending to spectral visions; and, the next year, held such relations with Margaret Rule? The next evidence in support of the opinion that Cotton Mather was considered, at the time, as identified with the proceedings at Salem, in 1692, although circumstantial, cannot, I think, but be regarded as quite conclusive. Immediately after the prosecutions terminated, measures began to be developed to remove Mr. Parris from his ministry. The reaction early took effect where the outrages of the delusion had been most flagrant; and the injured feelings of the friends of those who had been so cruelly cut off, and of all who had suffered in their characters and condition, found expression. A movement was made, directly and personally, upon Parris, in consequence of his conspicuous lead in the prosecutions; showing itself, first, in the form of litigation, in the Courts, of questions of salary and the adjustment of accounts. Soon, it broke out in the Church; and satisfaction was demanded, by aggrieved brethren, in the methods appropriate to ecclesiastical action. The charges here made against him were exclusively in reference to his course, at the Examinations and Trials, in 1692. The conflict, thus initiated, is one of the most memorable in our Church History. Parris and his adherents resisted, for a long time, the rightful and orderly demands of his opponents for a Mutual Council. At length, many of the Ministers, who sympathized with the aggrieved brethren, felt it their duty to interpose, and addressed a letter to Mr. Parris, giving him to understand that they were of opinion he ought to comply with the demand for a Council. This letter, dated the fourteenth of June, 1694, was signed by several of the neighboring Ministers, and by James Allen, of the First, and Samuel Willard, of the Old South, Churches, in Boston, _but not by the Mathers_. On the tenth of September, a similar letter was written to him, also signed by neighboring Ministers, and Mr. Allen, and Mr. Willard, _but not by the Mathers_. Not daring to refuse any longer, Parris, professedly yielding to the demand, consented to a Mutual Council, but avoided it, in this way. Each party was to select three Churches, to maintain its interests and give friendly protection to its rights and feelings. The aggrieved brethren selected the Churches of Rowley, Salisbury and Ipswich. Parris undertook to object to the Church of Ipswich; and refused to proceed, if it was invited. Of course, the aggrieved brethren persisted in their right to name the Churches on their side. Knowing that they had the right so to do, and that public opinion would sustain them in it, Parris escaped the dilemma, by calling an _ex parte_ Council; and the Churches invited to it were those of North Boston, Weymouth, Malden, and Rowley. The first was that of the Mathers. That Parris was right in relying upon the Rev. Samuel Torrey of Weymouth, is rendered probable by the circumstance that, of the names of the fourteen Ministers, including all those known to have been opposed to the proceedings at Salem, attached to the recommendation of the _Cases of Conscience_, his is not one; and may be considered as made certain by the fact recorded by Sewall, that he was opposed to the discontinuance of the Trials. The Pastor of the Malden Church was the venerable Michael Wigglesworth, a gentleman of the highest repute; who had declined the Presidency of Harvard College; whose son and grandson became Professors in that institution; and whose descendants still sustain the honor of their name and lineage. From the tone of his writings, it is quite probable that he favored the witchcraft proceedings, at the beginning; but the change of mind, afterwards strongly expressed, had, perhaps, then begun to be experienced, for he did not respond to the call, as his name does not appear in the record of the Council. The fact that Parris chiefly depended upon the Church at North Boston, of which Cotton Mather was Pastor, to sustain his cause, in a Council, whose whole business was to pass upon his conduct in witchcraft prosecutions, is quite decisive. That Church was named by him, from the first to the last, and neither of the other Boston Churches. It shows that he turned to Cotton Mather, more than to any other Minister, to be his champion. It is further decisively proved that the reaction had become strong among the Ministers, by the unusual steps they took to prevent that Council being under the sway of such men as Cotton Mather and Torrey, thereby prolonging the mischief. A meeting of the "Reverend Elders of the Bay" was held; and Mr. Parris was given to understand that, in their judgment, the Churches of Messrs. Allen and Willard ought also to be invited. He bitterly resented this, and saw that it sealed his fate; but felt the necessity of yielding to it. The addition of those two Churches, with their Pastors, determined the character and result of the Council, and gave new strength to the aggrieved brethren, who soon succeeded in compelling Parris and his friends to agree to submit the whole matter to the arbitration of three men, mutually chosen, whose decision should be final. The umpire selected in behalf of the opponents of Parris was no other than Elisha Cook, the head of the party arrayed against Mather. Wait Winthrop appears to have been selected by Parris; and Samuel Sewall was mutually agreed upon. Two of the three, who thus passed final judgment against the proceedings at the Salem Trials, sat on the Bench of the Special Court of Oyer and Terminer. The case of the aggrieved brethren was presented to the Arbitrators in a document, signed by four men, as "Attorneys of the people of the Village," each one of whom had been struck at, in the time of the prosecutions. It _exclusively_ refers to Mr. Parris's conduct, in the witchcraft prosecutions; to "his believing the Devil's accusations;" and to his going to the accusing girls, to know of them "who afflicted" them. For these reasons, and these alone, they "submit the whole" to the decision of the Arbitrators, concluding thus: "to determine whether we are, or ought to be, any ways obliged to honor, respect, and support such an instrument of our miseries." The Arbitrators decided that they _ought not_; fixed the sum to be paid to Parris, as a final settlement; and declared the ministerial relation, between him and the people of the Village, dissolved. With this official statement of the grounds on which his dismission was demanded and obtained, before his eyes, as printed by Calef (_p. 63_), this Reviewer says that Parris remained the Minister of Salem Village, five years "after the witchcraft excitement;" and further says, "the immediate cause of his leaving, was his quarrel with the Parish, concerning thirty cords of wood and the fee of the parsonage." He thus thinks, by a dash of his pen, to strike out the record of the fact that the main, in truth, the only, ground on which Parris was dismissed, was the part he bore in the witchcraft prosecutions. The salary question had been pending in the Courts; but it was wholly left out of view, by the party demanding his dismission. It had nothing to do with _dismission_; was a question of _contract_ and _debt_; and was absorbed in the "excitement," _which had never ceased_, about the witchcraft prosecutions. The Arbitrators did not decide those questions, about salary and the balance of accounts, except as incidental to the other question, of _dismission_. The feeling among the inhabitants of Salem Village, that Cotton Mather was in sympathy with Mr. Parris, during the witchcraft prosecutions, is demonstrated by the facts I have adduced connected with the controversy between them and the latter, and most emphatically by their choice of Elisha Cook, as the Arbitrator, on their part. Surely no persons of that day, understood the matter better than they did. Indeed, they could not have been mistaken about it. It remained the settled conviction of that community. When the healing ministry of the successor of Parris, Joseph Green, was brought to a close, by the early death of that good man, in 1715, and the whole Parish, still feeling the dire effects of the great calamity of 1692, were mourning their bereavement, expressed in their own language: "the choicest flower, and greenest olive-tree, in the garden of our God here, cut down in its prime and flourishing estate," they passed a vote, earnestly soliciting the Rev. William Brattle of Cambridge, to visit them. He was always a known opponent of Cotton Mather. To have selected him to come to them, in their distress and destitution, indicates the views then prevalent in the Village. He went to them and guided them by his advice, until they obtained a new Minister. The mention of the fact by Mr. Hale, already stated, that Cotton Mather's book, _Memorable Providences_, was used as an authority by the Judges at the Salem Trials, shows that the author of that work was regarded by Hale as, to that extent at least, responsibly connected with the prosecutions. I pass over, for the present, the proceedings and writings of Robert Calef. After the lapse of a few years, a feeling, which had been slowly, but steadily, rising among the people, that some general and public acknowledgment ought to be made by all who had been engaged in the proceedings of 1692, and especially by the authorities, of the wrongs committed in that dark day, became too strong to be safely disregarded. On the seventeenth of December, 1696, Stoughton, then acting as Governor, issued a Proclamation, ordaining, in his name and that of the Council and Assembly, a Public Fast, to be kept on the fourteenth of January, to implore that the anger of God might be turned away, and His hand, then stretched over the people in manifold judgments, lifted. After referring to the particular calamities they were suffering and to the many days that had been spent in solemn addresses to the throne of mercy, it expresses a fear that something was still wanting to accompany their supplications, and proceeds to refer, specially, to the witchcraft tragedy. It was on the occasion of this Fast, that Judge Sewall acted the part, in the public assembly of the old South Church, for which his name will ever be held in dear and honored memory. The public mind was, no doubt, gratified and much relieved, but not satisfied, by this demonstration. The Proclamation did not, after all, meet its demands. Upon careful examination and deliberate reflection, it rather aggravated the prevalent feeling. Written, as was to be supposed, by Stoughton, it could not represent a reaction in which he took no part. It spoke of "mistakes on either hand," and used general forms, "wherein we have done amiss, to do so no more." It endorsed in a new utterance, the delusion, sheltering the proper agents of the mischief, by ascribing it all to "Satan and his instruments, through the awful judgment of God;" and no atonement for the injuries to the good name and estates of the sufferers, not to speak of the lives that had been cut off, was suggested. The conviction was only deepened, in all good minds, that something more ought to be done. Mr. Hale, of Beverly, met the obligation pressing upon his sense of justice and appealing to him with especial force, by writing his book, from which the following passages are extracted: "I would come yet nearer to our own times, and bewail the errors and mistakes that have been, in the year 1692--by following such traditions of our fathers, maxims of the common law, and precedents and principles, which now we may see, weighed in the balance of the sanctuary, are found too light--Such was the darkness of that day, the tortures and lamentations of the afflicted, and the power of former precedents, that we walked in the clouds and could not see our way--I would humbly propose whether it be not expedient that somewhat more should be publicly done than yet hath, for clearing the good name and reputation of some that have suffered upon this account." The Rev. John Higginson, Senior Pastor of the First Church in Salem, then eighty-two years of age, in a recommendatory _Epistle to the Reader_, prefixed to Mr. Hale's book, dated the twenty-third of March, 1698, after stating that, "under the infirmities of a decrepit old age, he stirred little abroad, and was much disenabled (both in body and mind) from knowing and judging of occurrents and transactions of that time," proceeds to say that he was "more willing to accompany" Mr. Hale "to the press," because he thought his "treatise needful and useful upon divers accounts;" among others specified by him, is the following: "That whatever errors or mistakes we fell into, in the dark hour of temptation that was upon us, may be (upon more light) so discovered, acknowledged, and disowned by us, as that it may be matter of warning and caution to those that come after us, that they may not fall into the like.--_1 Cor._, x., 11. _Felix quem faciunt aliena pericula cautum._ I would also propound, and leave it as an object of consideration, to our honored Magistrates and Reverend Ministers, whether the equity of that law in _Leviticus_, Chap. iv., for a sin-offering for the Rulers and for the Congregation, in the case of sins of ignorance, when they come to be known, be not obliging, and for direction to us in a Gospel way." The venerable man concludes by saying that "it shall be the prayer of him who is daily waiting for his change and looking for the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ, unto eternal life," that the "blessing of Heaven may go along with this little treatise to attain the good ends thereof." Judge Sewall, too, and the Jury that had given the verdicts at the Trials, in 1692, publicly and emphatically acknowledged that they had been led into error. All these things afford decisive and affecting evidence of a prevalent conviction that a great wrong had been committed. The vote passed by the Church at Salem Village, on the fourteenth of February, 1703--"We are, through God's mercy to us, convinced that we were, at that dark day, under the power of those errors which then prevailed in the land." "We desire that this may be entered in our Church-book," "that so God may forgive our Sin, and may be atoned for the land; and we humbly pray that God will not leave us any more to such errors and sins"--affords striking proof that the right feeling had penetrated the whole community. On the eighth of July, of that same year, nearly the whole body of the Clergy of Essex-county addressed a Memorial to the General Court, in which they say, "There is great reason to fear that innocent persons then suffered, and that God may have a controversy with the land upon that account." Nothing of the kind, however, was ever heard from the Ministers of Boston and the vicinity. Why did they not join their voices in this prayer, going up elsewhere, from all concerned, for the divine forgiveness? We know that most of them felt right. Samuel Willard and James Allen did; and so did William Brattle, of Cambridge. Their silence cannot, it seems to me, be accounted for, but by considering the degree to which they were embarrassed by the relation of the Mathers to the affair. One brave-hearted old man remonstrated against their failure to meet the duty of the hour, and addressed his remonstrance to the right quarter. The Rev. Michael Wigglesworth, a Fellow of Harvard College, and honored in all the Churches, wrote a letter to Increase Mather, dated July 22, 1704 [_Mather Papers, 647_], couched in strong and bold terms, beginning thus: "REV. AND DEAR S^R. I am right well assured that both yourself, your son, and the rest of our brethren with you in Boston, have a deep sense upon your spirits of the awful symptoms of the Divine displeasure that we lie under at this day." After briefly enumerating the public calamities of the period, he continues: "I doubt not but you are all endeavouring to find out and discover to the people the causes of God's controversy, and how they are to be removed; to help forward this difficult and necessary work, give me leave to impart some of my serious and solemn thoughts. I fear (amongst our many other provocations) that God hath a controversy with us about what was done in the time of the Witchcraft. I fear that innocent blood hath been shed, and that _many have had their hands defiled therewith_." After expressing his belief that the Judges acted conscientiously, and that the persons concerned were deceived, he proceeds: "Be it then that it was done ignorantly. Paul, a Pharisee, persecuted the Church of God, shed the blood of God's Saints, and yet obtained mercy, because he did it in ignorance; but how doth he bewail it, and shame himself for it, before God and men afterwards. [_1 Tim., i., 13, 16._] I think, and am verily persuaded, God expects that we do the like, in order to our obtaining his pardon: I mean by a Public and Solemn acknowledgment of it and humiliation for it; and the more particularly and personally it is done by all that have been actors, the more pleasing it will be to God, and more effectual to turn away his judgments from the Land, and to prevent his wrath from falling upon the persons and families of such as have been most concerned. "I know this is a _Noli Me tangere_, but what shall we do? Must we pine away in our iniquities, rather than boldly declare the Counsel of God, who tells us, [_Isa., i., 15._] 'When you make many prayers, I will not hear you, your hands are full of blood.'" He further says that he believes that "the whole country lies under a curse to this day, and will do, till some effectual course be taken by our honored Governor and General Court to make amends and reparation" to the families of such as were condemned "for supposed witchcraft," or have "been ruined by taking away and making havoc of their estates." After continuing the argument, disposing of the excuse that the country was too impoverished to do any thing in that way, he charges his correspondent to communicate his thoughts to "the Rev. Samuel Willard and the rest of our brethren in the ministry," that action may be taken, without delay. He concludes his plain and earnest appeal and remonstrance, in those words: "I have, with a weak body and trembling hand, endeavoured to leave my testimony before I leave the world; and having left it with you (my Rev. Brethren) I hope I shall leave this life with more peace, when God seeth meet to call me hence." He died within a year. When the tone of this letter is carefully considered, and the pressure of its forcible and bold reasoning, amounting to expostulation, is examined, it can hardly be questioned that it was addressed to the persons who most needed to be appealed to. But no effect appears to have been produced by it. In introducing his report of the Trials, contained in the _Wonders of the Invisible World_, Cotton Mather, alluding to the "surviving relations" of those who had been executed, says: "The Lord comfort them." It was poor consolation he gave them in that book--holding up their parents, wives, and husbands, as "Malefactors." Neither he nor his father ever expressed a sentiment in harmony with those uttered by Hale, Higginson, or Wigglesworth--on the contrary, Cotton Mather, writing a year after the Salem Tragedy, almost chuckles over it: "In the whole--the Devil got just nothing--but God got praises. Christ got subjects, the Holy Spirit got temples, the church got addition, and the souls of men got everlasting benefits."--_Calef_, 12. Stoughton remained nearly the whole time, until his death, in May, 1702, in control of affairs. By his influence over the Government and that of the Mathers over the Clergy, nothing was done to remove the dark stigma from the honor of the Province, and no seasonable or adequate reparation ever made for the Great Wrong. I am additionally indebted to the kindness of Dr. Moore for the following extracts from a Sermon to the General Assembly, delivered by Cotton Mather, in 1709, intitled "_Theopolis Americana_. Pure Gold in the market place." "In two or three too Memorable _Days of Temptation_, that have been upon us, there have been _Errors_ Committed. You are always ready to Declare unto all the World, 'That you disapprove those Errors.' You are willing to inform all mankind with your _Declarations_. "That no man may be Persecuted, because he is Conscienciously not of the same Religious Opinions, with those that are uppermost. "And; That Persons are not to be judged Confederates with Evil Spirits, merely because the Evil Spirits do make Possessed People cry out upon them. "Could any thing be Proposed further, by way of Reparation, [Besides the General Day of Humiliation, which was appointed and observed thro' the Province, to bewayl the Errors of our Dark time, some years ago:] You would be willing to hearken to it." The suggestion thus made, not, it must be confessed, in very urgent terms, did not, it is probable, produce much impression. The preacher seemed to rest upon the Proclamation issued by Stoughton, some eleven years before. Coupling the two errors specified together, was not calculated to give effect to the recommendation. Public opinion was not, then, prepared to second such enlightened views as to religious liberty. It is very noticeable that Mather here must be considered as admitting that "in the Dark time," persons were judged "Confederates with Evil Spirits," "merely" because of Spectral Evidence. All that was said, on this occasion, does not amount to any thing, as an expression of _personal_ opinion or feeling, relating to points on which Hale and Higginson uttered their deep sensibility, and Wigglesworth had addressed to the Mathers and other Ministers, his solemn and searching appeal. The duty of reparation for the great wrong was thrown off upon others, than those particularly and prominently responsible. Nothing has led me to suppose that Cotton Mather was cruel or heartless, in his natural or habitual disposition. He never had the wisdom or dignity to acknowledge, as an individual, or _as one of the Clergy_, or to propose specific reparation for, the fearful mischiefs, sufferings and horrors growing out of the witchcraft prosecutions. The extent to which he was at the time, and probably always continued to be, the victim of baleful superstitions, is his only apology, and we must allow it just weight. A striking instance of the occasional ascendency of his better feelings, and of the singular methods in which he was accustomed to act, is presented in the following extract from his Diary, at a late period of his life. We may receive it as an indication that he was not insensible of his obligation to do good, where, with his participation, so much evil had been done: "There is a town in this country, namely, Salem, which has many poor and bad people in it, and such as are especially scandalous for staying at home on the Lord's day. I wrapped up seven distinct parcels of money and annexed seven little books about repentance, and seven of the monitory letter against profane absence from the house of God. I sent those things with a nameless letter unto the Minister of that Town, and desired and empowered him to dispense the charity in his own name, hoping thereby the more to ingratiate his ministry with the people. Who can tell how far the good Angels of Heaven cooperate in those proceeding?" XVI. HISTORY OF OPINION AS TO COTTON MATHER, CONTINUED. FRANCIS HUTCHINSON. DANIEL NEAL. ISAAC WATTS. THOMAS HUTCHINSON. WILLIAM BENTLEY. JOHN ELIOT. JOSIAH QUINCY. It was the common opinion in England, that the Mathers, particularly the younger, were pre-eminently responsible for the proceedings at Salem, in 1692. Francis Hutchinson, in the work from which I have quoted, speaks of the whole system of witchcraft doctrine, as "fantastic notions," which are "so far from raising their sickly visions into legal evidence, that they are grounded upon the very dregs of Pagan and Popish superstitions, and leave the lives of innocent men naked, without defence against them;" and in giving a list of books, written for upholding them, mentions, "Mr. Increase and Mr. Cotton Mather's several tracts;" and, in his Chapter on Witchcraft in Massachusetts, in 1692, commends the book of "Mr. Calef, a Merchant in that Plantation." About the same time, the Rev. Daniel Neal, the celebrated author of the _History of the Puritans_, wrote a _History of New England_, in which he gives place to a brief, impartial, and just account of the witchcraft proceedings, in 1692. He abstains from personal criticisms, but expresses this general sentiment: "Strange were the mistakes that some of the wisest and best men of the country committed on this occasion; which must have been fatal to the whole Province, if God, in his Providence, had not mercifully interposed." The only sentence that contains a stricture on Cotton Mather, particularly, is that in which he thus refers to his statement that a certain confession was _freely_ made. Neal quietly suggests, "whether the act of a man in prison, and under apprehension of death, may be called free, I leave others to judge." Dr. Isaac Watts, having read Neal's book, thought it necessary to write a letter to Cotton Mather, dated February 10, 1720; (_Massachusetts Historical Collections, I., v., 200_) and, describing a conversation he had just been having with Neal, says: "There is another thing, wherein my brother is solicitous lest he should have displeased you, and that is, the Chapter on Witchcraft, but, as he related matters of fact, by comparison of several authors, he hopes that you will forgive that he has not fallen into your sentiments exactly." The anxiety felt by Neal and Watts, lest the feelings of Mather might be wounded, shows what they thought of his implication with the affair. This inference is rendered unavoidable, when we examine Neal's book and find that he quotes or refers to Calef, all along, without the slightest question as to his credibility, receiving his statements and fully recognizing his authority. Indeed, his references to Calef are about ten to one oftener than to Mather. The attempt of Neal and Watts to smooth the matter down, by saying that the former had been led to his conclusions by "a comparison of several authors," could have given little satisfaction to Mather, as the authors whom he chiefly refers to, are Calef and Mather; and, comparing them with each other, he followed Calef. The impression thus held in England, even by Mather's friends and correspondents, that he was unpleasantly connected with the Witchcraft of 1692, has been uniformly experienced, on both sides of the water, until this Reviewer's attempt to erase it from the minds of men. Thomas Hutchinson was born in 1711, and brought up in the neighborhood of the Mathers; finishing his collegiate course and taking his Bachelor's degree at Harvard College, in 1727, a year before the death of Cotton Mather. He had opportunities to form a correct judgment about Salem Witchcraft and the chief actor in the proceedings, greater than any man of his day; but his close family connection with the Mathers imposed some restraint upon his expressions; not enough, however, to justify the statement of the Reviewer that he does not mention the "agency" of Cotton Mather in that transaction. There are several very distinct references to Mather's "agency," in Hutchinson's account of the transactions connected with Salem Witchcraft, some of which I have cited. I ask to whom does the following passage refer?--_ii., 63._--"One of the Ministers, who, in the time of it, was fully convinced that the complaining persons were no impostors, and who vindicated his own conduct and that of the Court, in a Narrative he published, remarks, not long after, in his Diary, that many were of opinion that innocent blood had been shed." This shows that Hutchinson regarded Cotton Mather's agency in the light in which I have represented it; that he considered him as wholly committed to the then prevalent delusion; as acting a part that identified him with the prosecutions; and that the Narrative he published was a joint vindication of himself and the Court. Hutchinson fastens the passage upon Mather, by the reference to the Diary; and while he says that it contained a statement, that many believed the persons who suffered innocent, he avoids saying that such was the opinion of the author of the Diary. Finally, his taking particular pains to do it, by giving a Note to the purpose of expressing his confidence in Calef, pronouncing him a "fair relator"--_ii., 56_--proves that Governor Hutchinson held the opinion about Mather's "agency," which has always heretofore been ascribed to him. William Bentley, D.D., was born in Boston, and for a large part of the first half of his life resided, as his family had done for a long period, in the North part of that Town. He was of a turn of mind to gather all local traditions, and, through all his days, devoted to antiquarian pursuits. No one of his period paid more attention to the subject of the witchcraft delusion. For much of our information concerning it, we are indebted to his _History and Description of Salem_, printed in 1800--_Massachusetts Historical Collections, I., vi._--After relating many of its incidents, he breaks forth in condemnation of those who, disapproving, at the time, of the proceedings, did not come out and denounce them. Holding the opinion, which had come down from the beginning, that Increase Mather disapproved of the transaction, he indignantly repudiates the idea of giving him any credit therefor. "Increase Mather did not oppose Cotton Mather"--this is the utterance of a received, and, to him, unquestioned, opinion that Cotton Mather approved of, and was a leading agent in, the prosecutions. The views of Dr. John Eliot, are freely given, to the same effect, in his _Biographical Dictionary_, as will presently be shown. The late Josiah Quincy had studied the annals of Massachusetts with the thoroughness with which he grappled every subject to which he turned his thoughts. His ancestral associations covered the whole period of its history; and all the channels of the local traditions of Boston were open to his enquiring and earnest mind. His _History of Harvard University_ is a monument that will stand forever. In that work, he speaks of the agreement of Stoughton's views with those of the Mathers; and, in connection with the witchcraft delusion, says that both of them "had an efficient agency in producing and prolonging that excitement." "The conduct of Increase Mather, in relation to it, was marked with caution and political skill; but that of his son, Cotton Mather, was headlong, zealous, and fearless, both as to character and consequences. In its commencement and progress, his activity is every-where conspicuous." The Reviewer represents Mr. Quincy as merely repeating what I had said in my Lectures. He makes the same reckless assertion in reference to Bancroft, the late William B. O. Peabody, D.D., and every one else, who has written upon the subject, since 1831. The idea that Josiah Quincy "took his cue" from me, is simply preposterous. He does not refer to me, nor give any indication that he had ever seen my _Lectures_, but cites Calef, as his authority, over and over again. Dr. Peabody refers to Calef throughout, and draws upon him freely and with confidence, as every one else, who has written about the transaction, has probably done. It may safely be said, that no historical fact has ever been more steadily recognized, than the action and, to a great degree, controlling agency, of Cotton Mather, in supporting and promoting the witchcraft proceedings of 1692. That it has, all along, been the established conviction of the public mind, is proved by the chronological series of names I have produced. Thomas Hutchinson, John Eliot, William Bentley, and Josiah Quincy, cover the whole period from Cotton Mather's day to this. They knew, as well as any other men that can be named, the current opinions, transmitted sentiments, and local and personal annals, of Boston. They reflect with certainty an assurance, running in an unbroken course over a century and a half. Their family connections, social position, conversance with events, and familiar knowledge of what men thought, believed, and talked about, give to their concurrent and continuous testimony, a force and weight of authority that are decisive; and demonstrate that, instead of my having invented and originated the opinion of Cotton Mather's agency in the matter now under consideration, I have done no more than to restate what has been believed and uttered from the beginning. The writer in the _North American_ says: "Within the last forty years, there has grown up a fashion, among our historical writers, of defaming his character and underrating his productions. For a specimen of these attacks, the reader is referred to a _Supposed Letter from Rev. Cotton Mather, D.D., with comments on the same by James Savage_." The article mentioned consists of the "supposed letter," and a very valuable communication from the late Rev. Samuel Sewall, with some items by Mr. Savage--[_Massachusetts Historical Collections, IV., ii., 122._] Neither of these enlightened, faithful, and indefatigable scholars is to be disposed of in this style. They followed no "fashion;" and their venerable names are held in honor by all true disciples of antiquarian and genealogical learning. The author of such works, in this department, as Mr. Savage has produced, cannot be thus set aside by a magisterial and supercilious waving of the hand of this Reviewer. XVII. THE EFFECT UPON THE POWER OF THE MATHERS, IN THE PUBLIC AFFAIRS OF THE PROVINCE, OF THEIR CONNECTION WITH WITCHCRAFT. The Reviewer takes exception to my statement, that the connection of the Mathers with the witchcraft business, "broke down" their influence in public affairs. What are the facts? It has been shown, that the administration of Sir William Phips, at its opening, was under their control, to an extent never equalled by that of private men over a Government. The prayers of Cotton Mather were fully answered; and if wise and cautious counsels had been given, what both father and son had so coveted, in the political management of the Province, would have been permanently realized. But, aiming to arm themselves with terrific and overwhelming strength, by invoking the cooperation of forces from the spiritual, invisible, and diabolical world, with rash "precipitancy," they hurried on the witchcraft prosecutions. The consequence was, that in six months, the whole machinery on which they had placed their reliance was prostrate. At the very next election, Elisha Cook was chosen and Nathaniel Saltonstall rechosen, to the Council; and, ever after, the Mathers were driven to the wall, in desperate and unavailing self-defence. No party or faction could claim the Earl of Bellamont, during his brief administration, covering but fourteen months. Although the only nobleman ever sent over as Governor of Massachusetts, more than all others, he conciliated the general good will. His short term of office and wise policy prevented any particular advantage to the Mathers from the dedication to him of the _Life of Phips_. During the entire period, between 1692 and the arrival of Dudley to the Government, the opponents of the Mathers were steadily increasing their strength. Opposition to Increase Mather was soon developed in attempts to remove him from the Presidency of Harvard College. In 1701, an Order was passed by the General Court, "that no man should act as President of the College, who did not reside at Cambridge." This decided the matter. Increase Mather resigned, on the sixth of September following; and, the same day, the Rev. Samuel Willard took charge of the College, under the title of Vice-president, and acted as President, to the acceptance of the people and with the support of the Government of the Province, to his death, in 1707--all the while allowed to retain the pastoral connection with his Church, in Boston. Joseph Dudley arrived from England, on the eleventh of June, 1702, with his Commission, as Captain-general and Governor of the Province. On the sixteenth, he made a call upon Cotton Mather, who relates the interview in his Diary. It seems that Mather made quite a speech to the new Governor, urging him "to carry an indifferent hand toward all parties," and explaining his meaning thus: "By no means, let any people have cause to say that you take all your measures from the two Mr. Mathers." He then added: "By the same rule, I may say without offence, by no means let any people say that you go by no measures in your conduct but Mr. Byfield's and Mr. Leverett's. This I speak, not from any personal prejudice against the gentlemen, but from a due consideration of the disposition of the people, and as a service to your Excellency." Dudley--whether judging rightly or not is to be determined by taking into view his position, the then state of parties, and the principles of human nature--evidently regarded this as a trap. If he had followed the advice, and kept aloof from Byfield and Leverett, they would have been placed at a distance from him, and he would necessarily have fallen into the hands of the Mathers. He may have thought that the only way to avoid such a result, was for him to explain to those gentlemen his avoidance of them, by mentioning to them what Mather had said to him, thereby signifying to them, that, as a matter of policy, he thought it best to adopt the suggestion and stand aloof from both sides. Whether acting from this consideration or from resentment, he informed them of it; whereupon Mather inserted this in his Diary: "The WRETCH went unto those men and told them that I had advised him to be no ways directed by them, and inflamed them into implacable rage against me." After this, the relations between Dudley and the Mathers must have been sufficiently awkward and uncomfortable; but no particular public demonstrations appear to have been made, on either side, for some time. Mr. Willard died on the twelfth of September, 1707; and the great question again rose as to the proper person to be called to the head of the College. The extraordinary learning of Cotton Mather undoubtedly gave him commanding and pre-eminent claims in the public estimation; and he had reason to think that the favorite object of his ambition was about to be attained. But he was doomed to bitter disappointment. On the twenty-eighth of October, the Corporation, through its senior member, the Rev. James Allen of Boston, communicated to the Governor the vote of that body, appointing the "Honorable John Leverett" to the Presidency; and, on the fourteenth of January, 1708, he was publicly inducted to office. The Mathers could stand it no longer; but, six days after, addressed, each, a letter to Dudley, couched in the bitterest and most abusive terms.--[_Massachusetts Historical Society's Collections, I., iii., 126._] No explosions of disappointed politicians and defeated aspirants for office, in our day, surpass these letters. They show how deeply the writers were stung. They heap maledictions on the Governor, without any of the restraints of courtesy or propriety. They charge him with all sorts of malversation in office, bribery, peculation, extortion, falseness, hypocrisy, and even murder; imputing to him "the guilt of innocent blood," because, many years before, he had, as Chief-justice of New York, presided at the Trial of Leisler and Milburn; and averring that "those men were not only murdered, but barbarously murdered." It is observable that some of the heinous crimes charged upon Dudley, occurred before his arrival as Governor of Massachusetts, in 1702; and that, in these very letters, they remind him that it was, in part, by their influence that he was then appointed, and that a letter from Cotton Mather, in favor of his appointment, was read before "the late King William." Both the Mathers were remarkable for a lack of vision, in reference to the logical bearing of what they said. It did not occur to them, that the fact of their soliciting his appointment closed their mouths from making charges for public acts well known to them at the time. Dudley says that he was assured by the Mathers, on his arrival, that he had the favor of all good men; and Cotton Mather, in his letter, reminds him that he signalized his friendly feelings, by giving to the public, on that occasion, the "portraiture of a good man." It is proved, therefore, by the evidence on both sides, that, well knowing all about the Leisler affair and other crimes alleged against him, they were ready, and most desirous, to secure his favor and friendship; and to identify themselves with his administration. In alluding to these letters, Hutchinson (_History, ii., 194_,) says: "In times when party spirit prevails, what will not a Governor's enemies believe, however injurious and absurd? At such a time, he was charged with dispensing _summum jus_ to Leisler and incurring an aggravated guilt of blood beyond that of a common murderer. The other party, no doubt, would have charged the failure of justice upon him, if Leisler had been acquitted." Dudley replied to both these extraordinary missives, in a letter dated the third of February, 1708. After rebuking, in stern and dignified language, the tone and style of their letters, reminding them, by apt citations from Scripture of the "laws of wise and Christian reproof," which they had violated, and showing upon what false foundations their charges rested, he says: "Can you think it the most proper season to do me good by your admonitions, when you have taken care to let the world know you are out of frame and filled with the last prejudice against my person and Government?" "Every one can see through the pretence, and is able to account for the spring of these letters, and how they would have been prevented, without easing any grievances you complain of." He makes the following proposal: "After all, though I have reason to complain to heaven and earth of your unchristian rashness, and wrath, and injustice, I would yet maintain a christian temper towards you. I do, therefore, now assure you that I shall be ready to give you all the satisfaction Christianity requires, in those points which are proper for you to seek to receive it in, when, with a proper temper and spirit, giving me timely notice, you do see meet to make me a visit for that end; and I expect the same satisfaction from you." He offers this significant suggestion: "I desire you will keep your station, and let fifty or sixty good Ministers, your equals in the Province, have a share in the Government of the College and advise thereabouts, as well as yourselves, and I hope all will be well." He concludes by claiming that he is sustained by the favor of the "Ministers of New England;" and characterises the issue between him and them thus: "The College must be disposed against the opinion of all the Ministers in New England, except yourselves, or the Governor torn in pieces. This is the view I have of your inclination." Dudley continued to administer the Government for eight years longer, until the infirmities of age compelled him to retire. Both Hutchinson and Doctor John Eliot give us to understand that he conducted the public affairs with great ability and success, with the general approval of all classes, and particularly of the Clergy. His statement that he had the support of all the Ministers of New England, except the Mathers, was undoubtedly correct. It is certainly true of the Ministers of Boston. In his Diary, under the year 1709, Cotton Mather says: "The other Ministers of the Town are this day feasting with our wicked Governor. I have, by my provoking plainness and freedom, in telling this Ahab of his wickedness, procured myself to be left out of his invitations. I rejoiced in my liberty from the temptations wherewith they were encumbered." He set apart that day for fasting and prayer, the special interest of which, he says, "was to obtain deliverance and protection" from his "enemies," whose names, he informs us, he "mentioned unto the Lord, who had promised to be my shield." The bitterness with which Mather felt exclusion from power is strikingly illustrated in a letter addressed by him to Stephen Sewall, published by me in the Appendix to the edition of my _Lectures_, printed in 1831. I subjoin a few extracts: "A couple of malignant fellows, a while since, railing at me in the Bookseller's shop, among other things they said, 'and his friend Noyes has cast him off,' at which they set up a laughter." "No doubt, you understand, how ridiculously things have been managed in our late General Assembly; voting and unvoting, the same day; and, at last, the squirrels perpetually running into the mouth open for them, though they had cried against it wonderfully. And your neighbor, Sowgelder, after his indefatigable pains at the castration of all common honesty, rewarded, before the Court broke up, with being made one of your brother Justices; which the whole House, as well as the apostate himself, had in view, all along, as the expected wages of his iniquity." "If things continue in the present administration, there will shortly be not so much as a shadow of justice left in the country. Bribery, a crime capital among the Pagans, is already a peccadillo among us. All officers are learning it. And, if I should say, Judges will find the way to it, some will say, there needs not the future tense in the case." "Every thing is betrayed, and that we, on the top of our house, may complete all, our very religion, with all the Churches, is at last betrayed--the treachery carried on with lies, and fallacious representations, and finished by the rash hands of our Clergy." That Cotton Mather continued all his subsequent life to experience the dissatisfaction, and give way to the feelings, of a disappointed man, is evident from his Diary. I have quoted from it a few passages. The Reviewer says it "is full of penitential confessions," and seems to liken him, in this respect, to the Apostle of the Gentiles. Speaking of my having cited the Diary, as historical evidence, he says: "Such a use of the confessional, we believe, is not common with historical writers." I do not remember anything like "penitential confessions," in the passages from the Diary given in my book. The reader is referred to them, in Volume II., Page 503. They belong to the year 1724, and are thus prefaced: "DARK DISPENSATIONS, BUT LIGHT ARISING IN DARKNESS." "It may be of some use to me, to observe some very dark dispensations, wherein the recompense of my poor essays at well-doing, in this life, seem to look a little discouraging; and then to express the triumph of my faith over such and all discouragements." "Of the things that look dark, I may touch of twice seven instances." The writer, in the _Christian Examiner_, November, 1831, from whom I took them, omitted two, "on account of their too personal or domestic character." I cannot find the slightest trace of a penitential tear on those I have quoted; and cite now but one of them, as pertinent to the point I am making: "What has a gracious Lord given me to do for the good of the country? in applications without number for it, in all its interests, besides publications of things useful to it, and for it. And, yet, there is no man whom the country so loads with disrespect, and calumnies, and manifold expressions of aversion." This is a specimen of the whole of them--one half recounting what he had done, the other complaining, sometimes almost scolding, at the poor requital he had received. President Leverett died on the third of May, 1724. His death was lamented by the country; and the most eminent men vied with each other in doing honor to his memory. The Rev. Benjamin Colman called him "our master," and pronounced his life as "great and good." "The young men saw him and hid themselves, and the aged arose and stood up." Dr. Appleton declared that he had been "an honored ornament to his country. Verily, the breach is so wide, that none but an all-sufficient God (with whom is the residue of the Spirit) can repair or heal it." The late Benjamin Peirce, in his _History of Harvard University_, says that "his Presidency was successful and brilliant." He was honored abroad, as well as at home; and his name is inscribed on the rolls of the Royal Society of London. Mr. Peirce says: "He had a great and generous soul." His natural abilities were of a very high order. His attainments were profound and extensive. He was well acquainted with the learned languages, with the arts and "sciences, with history, philosophy, law, divinity, politics." Such, we are told, were "the majesty and marks of greatness, in his speech, his behaviour, and his very countenance," that the students of the College were inspired with reverence and affection. In his earlier and later life, he had been connected with the College, as Tutor and as President; and in the intermediate period, he had filled the highest legislative and judicial stations, and been intrusted with the most important functions connected with the military service. I am inclined to think, all things considered, a claim, in his behalf, might be put in for the distinction the Reviewer awards to Cotton Mather, as "doubtless the most brilliant man of his day in New England." President Leverett was buried on the sixth of May. Cotton Mather officiated as one of the Pall-bearers, and then went home, and made the following entry in his Diary, dated the seventh: "The sudden death of that unhappy man who sustained the place of President in our College, will open a door for my doing singular services in the best of interests. I do not know that the care of the College will now be cast upon me; though I am told it is what is most generally wished for. If it should be, I shall be in abundance of distress about it; but, if it should not, yet I may do many things for the good of the College more quietly and more hopefully than formerly." As time wore away, and no choice of President was made, he became more and more sensible that an influence, hostile to him, was in the ascendency; and, on the first of July, he writes thus, in his Diary: "This day being our insipid, ill-contrived anniversary, which we call Commencement, I chose to spend it at home, in supplications, partly on the behalf of the College, that it may not be foolishly thrown away, but that God may bestow such a President upon it, as may prove a rich blessing unto it and unto all our Churches." In the meanwhile, he renewed his attendance at the meetings of the Overseers; having never occupied his seat, in that Body, with the exception of a single Session, during the whole period of Leverett's presidency. The Board, at a meeting he attended, on the sixth of August, 1724, passed a vote advising and directing the speedy election of a President. On the eleventh, the Corporation chose the Rev. Joseph Sewall of the Old South Church; and Mather records the event in his Diary, as follows: "I am informed that, yesterday, the six men, who call themselves the Corporation of the College, met, and, contrary to the epidemical expectation of the country, chose a modest young man, Sewall, of whose piety (and little else) every one gives a laudable character." "I always foretold these two things of the Corporation: First, that, if it were possible for them to steer clear of me, they will do so. Secondly, that, if it were possible for them to act foolishly, they will do so. The perpetual envy with which my essays to serve the kingdom of God are treated among them, and the dread that Satan has of my beating up his quarters at the College, led me into the former sentiment; the marvellous indiscretion, with which the affairs of the College are managed, led me into the latter." Mr. Sewall declined the appointment. On the eighteenth of November, the Rev. Benjamin Colman, of the Brattle-street Church, was chosen. He also declining, the Rev. Benjamin Wadsworth, of the First Church, was elected, in June, 1725, and inaugurated on the seventh of July. It thus appears that Dr. Mather was pointedly passed over; and every other Minister of Boston successively chosen to that great office. Of course he took, as Mr. Peirce informs us, no further part in the management of the College. While he considered, as he expressed it, the "senselessness" of those entrusted with its affairs, as threatening "little short of a dissolution of the College," yet he persuaded himself that he had never desired the office. He had, he says, "unspeakable cause to admire the compassion of Heaven, in saving him from the appointment;" and that he had always had a "dread of what the generality of sober men" thought he desired--"dismal apprehension of the distresses which a call at Cambridge would bring" upon him.--He was sincere in those declarations, no doubt; but they show how completely he could blind himself to the past and even to the actual present. Mr. Peirce explains why the Corporation were so resolute in withholding their suffrages from Mather: "His contemporaries appear to have formed a very correct estimate of his character." "They saw, what posterity sees, that he was a man of wonderful parts, of immense learning, and of eminent piety and virtue." "They saw his weakness and eccentricities." "It is evident that his judgment was not equal to his other faculties; that his passions, which were naturally strong and violent, were not always under proper regulation; that he was weak, credulous, enthusiastic, and superstitious. His conversation is said to have been instructive and entertaining, in a high degree, though often marred by levity, vanity, imprudence and puns." For these reasons, he was deemed an unsuitable person for the Presidency of the College. XVIII. COTTON MATHER'S WRITINGS AND CHARACTER. While compelled--by the attempt of the writer in the _North American Review_ to reverse the just verdict of history in reference to Cotton Mather's connection with Salem Witchcraft--to show the unhappy part he acted and the terrible responsibility he incurred, in bringing forward, and carrying through its stages, that awful tragedy, and the unworthy means he used to throw that responsibility, afterwards, on others, I am not to be misled into a false position, in reference to this extraordinary man. I endorse the language of Mr. Peirce: "He possessed great vigor and activity of mind, quickness of apprehension, a lively imagination, a prodigious memory, uncommon facility in acquiring and communicating knowledge, with the most indefatigable application and industry; that he amassed an immense store of information on all subjects, human and divine." I follow Mr. Peirce still further, in believing that his natural temperament was pleasant and his sentiments of a benevolent cast: "that he was an habitual promoter and doer of good, is evident, as well from his writings as from the various accounts that have been transmitted respecting him." If the question is asked, as it naturally will be, how these admissions can be reconciled with the views and statements respecting him, contained in this article and in my book on witchcraft, the answer is: that mankind is not divided into two absolutely distinct and entirely separated portions--one good and the other evil. The good are liable to, and the bad are capable of, each receiving much into their own lives and characters, that belongs to the other. This interfusion universally occurs. The great errors and the great wrongs imputable to Cotton Mather do not make it impracticable to discern what was commendable in him. They may be accounted for without throwing him out of the pale of humanity or our having to shut our eyes to traits and merits other ways exhibited. The extraordinary precocity of his intellect--itself always a peril, often a life-long misfortune--awakened vanity and subjected him to the flattery by which it is fed. All ancestral associations and family influences pampered it. Such a speech as that made to him, at his graduation, by President Oakes, could not have failed to have inflated it to exaggerated dimensions. Clerical and political ambition was natural, all but instinctive, to one, whose father, and both whose grandfathers, had been powers, in the State as well as Church. The religious ideas, if they can be so called, in which he had been trained from childhood, in a form bearing upon him with more weight than upon any other person in all history, inasmuch, as they constituted the prominent feature of his father's reading, talk, thoughts, and writings, gave a rapid and overshadowing growth to credulity and superstition. A defect in his education, perhaps, in part, a natural defect, left him without any true logical culture, so that he seems, in his productions and conduct, not to discern the sequences of statements, the coherence of propositions, nor the consistency of actions, thereby entangling him in expressions and declarations that have the aspect of untruthfulness--his language often actually bearing that character, without his discerning it. His writings present many instances of this infirmity. Some have already been incidentally adduced. In his _Life of Phips_, avowing himself the author of the document known as the _Advice of the Ministers_, he uses this language: "By Mr. Mather the younger, as I have been informed." He had, in fact, never been _so informed_. He knew it by consciousness. Of course he had no thought of deceiving; but merely followed a habit he had got, of such modes of expression. So, also, when he sent a present of money and tracts to "poor and bad people," in Salem, with an anonymous letter to the Minister of the place, "desiring and empowering him to dispense the charity, _in his own name_, hoping thereby the _more to ingratiate his ministry with the people_," he looked only on one side of the proposal, and saw it in no other light than a benevolent and friendly transaction. It never occurred to him that he was suggesting a deceptive procedure and drawing the Minister into a false position and practice. When, in addition, we consider to what he was exposed by his proclivity to, and aspirations for, political power, the expedients, schemes, contrivances, and appliances, in which he thereby became involved in the then state of things in the Colony, and the connection which leading Ministers, although not admitted to what are strictly speaking political offices, had with the course of public affairs--his father, to an extent never equalled by any other Clergyman, before or since--we begin to estimate the influences that disastrously swayed the mind of Cotton Mather. Vanity, flattery, credulity, want of logical discernment, and the struggles between political factions, in the unsettled, uncertain, transition period, between the old and new Charters, are enough to account for much that was wrong, in one of Mather's temperament and passions, without questioning his real mental qualities, or, I am disposed to think, his conscious integrity, or the sincerity of his religious experiences or professions. But his chief apology, after all, is to be found in the same sphere in which his chief offences were committed. Certain topics and notions, in reference to the invisible, spiritual, and diabolical world, whether of reality or fancy it matters not, had, all his life long, been the ordinary diet, the daily bread, of his mind. It may, perhaps, be said with truth, that the theological imagery and speculations of that day, particularly as developed in the writings of the two Mathers, were more adapted to mislead the mind and shroud its moral sense in darkness, than any system, even of mythology, that ever existed. It was a mythology. It may be spoken of with freedom, now, as it has probably passed away, in all enlightened communities in Christendom. Satan was the great central character, in what was, in reality, a Pantheon. He was surrounded with hosts of infernal spirits, disembodied and embodied, invisible demons, and confederate human agents. He was seen in everything, everywhere. His steps were traced in extraordinary occurrences and in the ordinary operations of nature. He was hovering over the heads of all, and lying in wait along every daily path. The affrighted imagination, in every scene and mode of life, was conversant with ghosts, apparitions, spectres, devils. This prevalent, all but universal, exercise of credulous fancy, exalted into the most imposing dignity of theology and faith, must have had a demoralizing effect upon the rational condition and faculties of men, and upon all discrimination and healthfulness of thought. When error, in its most extravagant forms, had driven the simplicity of the Gospel out of the Church and the world, it is not to be wondered at that the mind was led to the most shocking perversions, and the conscience ensnared to the most indefensible actions. The superstition of that day was foreshadowed in the ferocious cannibal of classic mythology--a monster, horrific, hideous in mien, and gigantic in stature. It involved the same fate. The eye of the intellect was burned out, the light of reason extinguished--_cui lumen ademptum_. Having always given himself up to the contemplation of diabolical imaginations, Cotton Mather was led to take the part he did, in the witchcraft proceedings; and it cannot be hidden from the light of history. The greater his talents, the more earnestly he may, in other matters, have aimed to be useful, the more weighty is the lesson his course teaches, of the baleful effects of bewildering and darkening superstition. There is another, and a special, explanation to be given of the disingenuousness that appears in his writings. He was a master of language. He could express, with marvelous facility, any shade of thought. He could also make language conceal thought. No one ever handled words with more adroitness. He could mould them to suit his purposes, at will, and with ease. This faculty was called in requisition by the special circumstances of his times. It was necessary to preserve, at least, the appearance of unity among the Churches, while there was as great a tendency, then, as ever, to diversity of speculations, touching points of casuistical divinity or ministerial policy. The talent to express in formulas, sentiments that really differed, so as to obscure the difference, was needed; and he had it. He knew how to frame a document that would suit both sides, but, in effect, answer the purposes of one of them, as in the _Advice of the Ministers_. He could assert a proposition and connect with it what appeared to be only a judicious modification or amplification, but which, in reality, was susceptible of being interpreted as either more or less corroborating or contradicting it, as occasion might require. This was a sort of sleight of hand, in the use of words; and was noticed, at the time, as "legerdemain." He practised it so long that it became a feature of his style; and he actually, in this way, deceived himself as well as others. It is a danger to which ingenious and hair-splitting writers are liable. I am inclined to think that what we cannot but regard as patent misstatements, were felt by him to be all right, in consequence, as just intimated, of this acquired habit. His style is sprightly, and often entertaining. Neal, the author of the _History of the Puritans_, in a letter to the Rev. Benjamin Colman, after speaking with commendation of one of Cotton Mather's productions, says: "It were only to be wished that it had been freed from those puns and jingles that attend all his writings, before it had been made public."--_Massachusetts Historical Collections, I., v., 199._--Mr. Peirce, it has been observed, speaks of his "puns," in conversation. It is not certain, but that, to a reader now, these very things constitute a redeeming attraction of his writings and relieve the mind of the unpleasant effects of his credulity and vanity, pedantic and often far-fetched references, palpable absurdities, and, sometimes, the repulsiveness of his topics and matter. The Reviewer represents me as prejudiced against Cotton Mather. Far from it. Forty-three years ago, before my attention had been particularly called to his connection with alleged witchcrafts or with the political affairs of his times, I eulogized his "learning and liberality," in warm terms.--_Sermon at the Dedication of the House of Worship of the First Church, in Salem, Massachusetts, 48._ I do not retract what I then said. Cotton Mather was in advance of his times, in liberality of feeling, in reference to sectarian and denominational matters. He was, undoubtedly, a great student, and had read all that an American scholar could then lay his hands on. Marvellous stories were told of the rapidity of his reading. He was a devourer of books. At the same time, I vindicated him, without reserve, from the charge of pedantry. This I cannot do now. Observation and reflection have modified my views. He made a display, over all his pages, of references and quotations from authors then, as now, rarely read, and of anecdotes, biographical incidents, and critical comments relating to scholars and eminent persons, of whom others have but little information, and of many of whom but few have ever heard. This filled his contemporaries with wonder; led to most extravagant statements, in funeral discourses, by Benjamin Colman, Joshua Gee, and others; and made the general impression that has come down to our day. Without detracting from his learning, which was truly great, it cannot be denied that this superfluous display of it subjects him, justly to the imputation of pedantry. It may be affected where, unlike the case of Cotton Mather, there is, in reality, no very extraordinary amount of learning. It is a trick of authorship easily practised. Any one reading Latin with facility, having a good memory, and keeping a well-arranged scrap-book, needs less than half a dozen such books as the following, to make a show of learning and to astonish the world by his references and citations--the six folio volumes of Petavius, on Dogmatic Theology, and his smaller work, _Rationarium Temporum_, a sort of compendium or schedule of universal history; and a volume printed, in the latter half of the seventeenth century, at Amsterdam, compiled by Limborch, consisting of an extensive collection of letters to and from the most eminent men of that and the preceding century, such as Arminius, Vossius, Episcopius, Grotius, and many others, embracing a vast variety of literary history, criticism, biography, theology, philosophy, and ecclesiastical matters--I have before me the copy of this work, owned by that prodigy of learning, Dr. Samuel Parr, who pronounced it "a precious book;" and it may have contributed much to give to his productions, that air of rare learning that astonished his contemporaries. To complete the compendious apparatus, and give the means of exhibiting any quantity of learning, in fields frequented by few, the only other book needed is Melchior Adams's _Lives of Literati_, including all most prominently connected with Divinity, Philosophy, and the progress of learning and culture, during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and down to its date, 1615. I have before me, the copy of this last work, owned by Richard Mather, and probably brought over with him, in his perilous voyage, in 1635. It was, successively, in the libraries of his son, Increase, and his grandson, Cotton Mather. At a corner of one of the blank leaves, it is noted, apparently in the hand of Increase Mather: "began Mar. 1, finished April 30, 1676." According to the popular tradition, Cotton would have read it, in a day or two. It contains interesting items of all sorts--personal anecdotes, critical comments, and striking passages of the lives and writings of more than one hundred and fifty distinguished men, such as Erasmus, Fabricius, Faustus, Cranmer, Tremellius, Peter Martyr, Beza, and John Knox. Whether Mather had access to either of the above-named works, except the last, is uncertain; but, as his library was very extensive, he sparing no pains nor expense in furnishing it, and these books were severally then in print and precisely of the kind to attract him and suit his fancy, it is not unlikely that he had them all. They would have placed in easy reach, much of the mass of amazing erudition with which he "entertained" his readers and hearers. Cotton Mather died on the thirteenth of February, 1728, at the close of his sixty-fifth year. Thirty-six years had elapsed since the fatal imbroglio of Salem witchcraft. He had probably long been convinced that it was vain to attempt to shake the general conviction, expressed by Calef, that he had been "the most active and forward of any Minister in the country in those matters," and acquiesced in the general disposition to let that matter rest. It must be pleasing to all, to think that his very last years were freed from the influences that had destroyed the peace of his life and left such a shade over his name. Having met with nothing but disaster from attempting to manage the visible as well as the invisible world, he probably left them both in the hands of Providence; and experienced, as he had never done, a brief period of tranquillity, before finally leaving the scene. His aspiration to control the Province had ceased. The object of his life-long pursuit, the Presidency of the College, was forever baffled. Nothing but mischief and misery to himself and others had followed his attempt to lead the great combat against the Devil and his hosts. It had fired his early zeal and ambition; but that fire was extinguished. The two ties, which more than all others, had bound him, by his good affections and his unhappy passions, to what was going on around him, were severed, nearly at the same time, by the death of his father, in 1723, and of his great and successful rival, Leverett, in 1724. Severe domestic trials and bereavements completed the work of weaning him from the world; and it is stated that, in his very last years, the resentments of his life were buried and the ties of broken friendships restored. The pleasantest intercourse took place between him and Benjamin Colman; men of all parties sought his company and listened to the conversation, which was always one of his shining gifts; he had written kindly about Dudley; and his end was as peaceful as his whole life would have been, but for the malign influences I have endeavored to describe, leading him to the errors and wrongs which, while faithful history records them, men must regard with considerate candor, as God will with infinite mercy. It is a curious circumstance, that the two great public funerals, in those early times, of which we have any particular accounts left, were of the men who, in life, had been so bitterly opposed to each other. When Leverett was buried, the cavalcade, official bodies, students, and people, "were fain to proceed near as far as Hastings' before they returned," so great was the length of the procession: the funeral of Mather was attended by the greatest concourse that had ever been witnessed in Boston. XIX. ROBERT CALEF'S WRITINGS AND CHARACTER. I approach the close of this protracted discussion with what has been purposely reserved. The article in the _North American Review_ rests, throughout, upon a repudiation of the authority of Robert Calef. Its writer says, "his faculties appear to us to have been of an inferior order." "He had a very feeble conception of what credible testimony is." "If he had not intentionally lied, he had a very imperfect appreciation of truth." He speaks of "Calef's disqualifications as a witness." He seeks to discredit him, by suggesting the idea that, in his original movements against Mather, he was instigated by pre-existing enmity--"Robert Calef, between whom and Mr. Mather a personal quarrel existed." "His personal enemy, Calef." There is no evidence of any difficulty, nor of any thing that can be called "enmity," between these two persons, prior to their dealings with each other, in the Margaret Rule case, commencing on the thirteenth of September, 1693. Mather himself states, in his Diary, that the enmity between them arose out of Calef's opposition to his, Mather's, views relating to the "existence and influences of the invisible world." So far as we have any knowledge, their acquaintance began at the date just mentioned. The suggestion of pre-existing enmity, therefore, gives an unfair and unjust impression. Robert Calef was a native of England, a young man, residing, first in Roxbury, and afterwards at Boston. He was reputed a person of good sense; and, from the manner in which Mather alludes to him, in one instance, of considerable means: he had, probably, been prosperous in his business, which was that of a merchant. Not a syllable is on record against his character, outside of his controversy with the Mathers; all that is known of him, on the contrary, indicates that he was an honorable and excellent person. He enjoyed the confidence of the people; and was called to municipal trusts, for which only reliable, discreet, vigilant, and honest citizens were selected, receiving the thanks of the Town for his services, as Overseer of the Poor. As he encountered the madness and violence of the people, when they were led by Cotton Mather, in the witchcraft delusion, it is a singular circumstance, constituting an honorable distinction, in which they shared, that, in a later period of their lives, they stood, shoulder to shoulder, breasting bravely together, another storm of popular fanaticism, by publicly favoring inoculation for the small-pox. He offered several of his children to be treated, at the hands of Dr. Boylston, in 1721. His family continued to bear up the respectability of the name, and is honorably mentioned in the municipal records. A vessel, named _London_, was a regular Packet-ship, between that port and Boston, and probably one of the largest class then built in America. She was commanded by "Robert Calef;" and, in the Boston _Evening Post_, of the second of May, 1774, "Dr. Calef of Ipswich" is mentioned among the passengers just arrived in her. Under his own, and other names, the descendants of the family of Calef are probably as numerous and respectable as those of the Mathers; and on that, as all other higher accounts, there is an equal demand for justice to their respective ancestors. It is related by Mather, that a young woman, named Margaret Rule, belonging to the North part of Boston, "many months after the General Storm of the late enchantments, was over," "when the country had long lain pretty quiet," was "seized by the Evil Angels, both as to molestations and accusations from the Invisible World". On the Lord's Day, the tenth of September, 1693, "after some hours of previous disturbance of the public assembly, she fell into odd fits," and had to be taken out of the congregation and carried home, "where her fits, in a few hours, grew into a figure that satisfied the spectators of their being supernatural." He further says, that, "from the 10th of September to the 18th, she kept an entire fast, and yet, she was to all appearance as fresh, as lively, as hearty, at the nine days end, as before they began. In all this time she had a very eager hunger upon her stomach, yet if any refreshment were brought unto her, her teeth would be set, and she would be thrown into many miseries. Indeed, once, or twice, or so, in all this time, her tormentors permitted her to swallow a mouthful of somewhat that might increase her miseries, whereof a spoonful of rum was the most considerable." The affair, of course, was noised abroad. It reached the ears of Robert Calef. On the thirteenth, after sunset, accompanied by some others, he went to the house, "drawn," as he says, "by curiosity to see Margaret Rule, and so much the rather, because it was reported Mr. Mather would be there, that night." They were taken into the chamber where she was in bed. They found her of a healthy countenance. She was about seventeen years of age. Increase and Cotton Mather came in, shortly afterwards, with others. Altogether, there were between thirty and forty persons in the room. Calef drew up Minutes of what was said and done. He repeated his visit, on the evening of the nineteenth. Cotton Mather had been with Margaret half an hour; and had gone before his arrival. Each night, Calef made written minutes of what was said and done, the accuracy of which was affirmed by the signatures of two persons, which they were ready to confirm with their oaths. He showed them to some of Mather's particular friends. Whereupon Mather preached about him; sent word that he should have him arrested for slander; and called him "one of the worst of liars." Calef wrote him a letter, on the twenty-ninth of September; and, in reference to the complaints and charges Mather was making, proposed that they should meet, in either of two places he mentioned, each accompanied by a friend, at which time he, Calef, would read to him the minutes he had taken, of what had occurred on the evenings of the thirteenth and nineteenth. Mather sent a long letter, not to be delivered, but read to him, in which he agreed to meet him, as proposed, at one of the places; but, in the mean time, on the complaint of the Mathers, for scandalous libels upon Cotton Mather, Calef was brought before "their Majesties Justice, and bound over to answer at Sessions." Mather, of course, failed to give him the meeting for conference, as agreed upon. On the twenty-fourth of November, Calef wrote to him again, referring to his failure to meet him and to the legal proceedings he had instituted; and, as the time for appearance in Court was drawing near, he "thought it not amiss to give a summary" of his views on the "great concern," as to which they were at issue. He states, at the outset, "that there are witches, is not the doubt." The Reviewer seizes upon this expression, to convey the idea that Calef was trying to conciliate Mather, and induce him to desist from the prosecution. Whoever reads the letter will see how unfair and untrue this is. Calef keeps to the point, which was not whether there were, or could be, witches; but whether the methods Mather was attempting, in the case of Margaret Rule, and which had been used in Salem, the year before, were legitimate or defensible. He was determined not to suffer the issue to be shifted. Upon receiving this letter, Mather, who had probably, upon reflection, begun to doubt about the expediency of a public prosecution, signified that he had no desire to press the prosecution; and renewed the proposal for a conference. Calef "waited on Sessions;" but no one appearing against him, was dismissed. The affair seemed, at this crisis, to be tending toward an amicable conclusion. But Mather failed to meet him; and, on the eleventh of January, 1694, Calef addressed him again, recapitulating what had occurred, sending him copies of his previous letters and also of the Minutes he had taken of what occurred on the evenings of the thirteenth and nineteenth of September, with these words: "REVEREND SIR: Finding it necessary, on many accounts, I here present you with the copy of that Paper, which has been so much misrepresented, to the end, that what shall be found defective or not fairly represented, if any such shall appear, they may be set right." This letter concludes in terms which show that, in that stage of the affair, Calef was disposed to treat Mather with great respect; and that he sincerely and earnestly desired and trusted that satisfaction might be given and taken, in the interview he so persistently sought--not merely in reference to the case of Margaret Rule, but to the general subject of witchcraft, on which they had different apprehensions: "I have reason to hope for a satisfactory answer to him, who is one that reverences your person and office." This language strikingly illustrates the estimate in which Ministers were held. Reverence for their office and for them, as a body, pervaded all classes. On the fifteenth of January, Mather replied complaining, in general terms, of the narrative contained in Calef's Minutes, as follows: "I do scarcely find any _one_ thing, in the whole paper, whether respecting my father or myself, either fairly or truly represented." "The narrative contains a number of mistakes and falsehoods which, were they wilful and designed, might justly be termed great lies." He then goes into a specification of a few particulars, in which he maintains that the Minutes are incorrect. On the eighteenth of January, Calef replied, reminding him that he had taken scarcely any notice of the general subject of diabolical agency; but that almost the whole of his letter referred to the Minutes of the meetings, on the thirteenth and nineteenth of September; and he maintains their substantial accuracy and shows that some of Mather's strictures were founded upon an incorrect reading of them. In regard to Mather's different recollection of some points, he expresses his belief that if his account, in the Minutes, "be not fully exact, it was as near as memory could bear away." He notices the fact that he finds in Mather's letter no objection to what related to matters of greatest concern. Mather had complained that the Minutes reported certain statements made by Rule, which had been used to his disadvantage; and Calef suggests, "What can be expected less from the father of lies, by whom, you judge, she was possest?" Appended to Mather's letter, are some documents, signed by several persons, declaring that they had seen Rule lifted up by an invisible force from the bed to the top of the room, while a strong person threw his whole weight across her, and several others were trying with all their might to hold her down or pull her back. Upon these certificates, Calef remarks: "Upon the whole, I suppose you expect I should believe it; and if so, the only advantage gained is, that what has been so long controverted between Protestants and Papists, whether miracles are ceased, will hereby seem to be decided for the latter; it being, for ought I can see, if so, as true a miracle as for iron to swim; and the Devil can work such miracles." Calef wrote to him again, on the nineteenth of February, once more praying that he would so far oblige him, as to give him his views, on the important subjects, for a right understanding of which he had so repeatedly sought a conference and written so many letters; and expressing his earnest desire to be corrected, if in error, to which end, if Mather would not, he indulged a hope that some others would, afford him relief and satisfaction. On the sixteenth of April, he wrote still another letter. In all of them, he touched upon the points at issue between them, and importuned Mather to communicate his views, fully, as to one seeking light. On the first of March, he wrote to a gentleman, an acknowledgment of having received, through his hands, "after more than a year's waiting," from Cotton Mather, four sheets of paper, not to be copied, and to be returned in a fortnight. Upon returning them, with comments, he desires the gentleman to request Mr. Mather not to send him any more such papers, unless he could be allowed to copy and use them. It seems that, in answer to a subsequent letter, Mather sent to him a copy of Richard Baxter's _Certainty of the World of Spirits_, to which, after some time, Calef found leisure to reply, expressing his dissent from the views given in that book, and treating the subject somewhat at large. In this letter, which closes his correspondence with Mather, he makes his solemn and severe appeal: "Though there is reason to hope that these diabolical principles have not so far prevailed (with multitudes of Christians), as that they ascribe to a witch and a devil the attributes peculiar to the Almighty; yet how few are willing to be found opposing such a torrent, as knowing that in so doing they shall be sure to meet with opposition to the utmost, from the many, both of Magistrates, Ministers, and people; and the name of Sadducee, atheist, and perhaps witch too, cast upon them, most liberally, by men of the highest profession in godliness; and, if not so learned as some of themselves, then accounted only fit to be trampled on, and their arguments (though both rational and scriptural) as fit only for contempt. But though this be the deplorable dilemma, yet some have dared, from time to time, (for the glory of God and the good and safety of men's lives, etc.) to run all these risks. And, that God who has said, 'My glory I will not give to another,' is able to protect those that are found doing their duty herein against all opposers; and, however otherwise contemptible, can make them useful in his own hand, who has sometimes chosen the weakest instruments that His power may be the more illustrious. "And now, Reverend Sir, if you are conscious to yourself, that you have, in your principles or practices, been abetting to such grand errors, I cannot see how it can consist with sincerity, to be so convinced, in matters so nearly relating to the glory of God and lives of innocents, and, at the same time, so much to fear disparagement among men, as to trifle with conscience and dissemble an approving of former sentiments. You know that word, 'He that honoreth me I will honor, and he that despiseth me shall be lightly esteemed.' But, if you think that, in these matters, you have done your duty, and taught the people theirs; and that the doctrines cited from the above mentioned book [_Baxter's_] are ungainsayable; I shall conclude in almost his words. He that teaches such a doctrine, if through ignorance he believes not what he saith, may be a Christian; but if he believes them, he is in the broad path to heathenism, devilism, popery, or atheism. It is a solemn caution (_Gal., i., 8_): 'But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.' I hope you will not misconstrue my intentions herein, who am, Reverend Sir, yours to command, in what I may." Resolute in his purpose to bring the Ministers, if possible, to meet the questions he felt it his duty to have considered and settled, and careful to leave nothing undone that he could do, to this end, he sought the satisfaction from others, he had tried, in vain, to obtain from Mather. On the eighteenth of March, 1695, he addressed a letter "To the Ministers, whether English, French, or Dutch," calling their attention to "the mysterious doctrines" relating to the "power of the Devil," and to the subject of Witchcraft. On the twentieth of September, he wrote to the Rev. Samuel Willard, invoking his attention to the "great concern," and his aid in having it fairly discussed. On the twelfth of January, 1696, he addressed "The Ministers in and near Boston," for the same purpose; and wrote a separate letter to the Rev. Benjamin Wadsworth. These documents were all composed with great earnestness, frankness, and ability; and are most creditable to his intelligence, courage, and sense of public duty. I have given this minute account of his proceedings with Mather and the Clergy generally, because I am impressed with a conviction that no instance can be found, in which a great question has been managed with more caution, deliberation, patience, manly openness and uprightness, and heroic steadiness and prowess, than this young merchant displayed, in compelling all concerned to submit to a thorough investigation and over-hauling of opinions and practices, established by the authority of great names and prevalent passions and prejudices, and hedged in by the powers and terrors of Church and State. It seems to be evident that he must have received aid, in some quarter, from persons conversant with topics of learning and methods of treating such subjects, to an extent beyond the reach of a mere man of business. In the First Volume of the _Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society_, Page 288, a Memorandum, from which I make an extract, is given, as found in Doctor Belknap's hand-writing, in his copy of Calef's book, in the collection, from the library of that eminent historian, presented by his heirs to that institution: "A young man of good sense, and free from superstition; a merchant in Boston. He was furnished with materials for his work, by Mr. Brattle of Cambridge, and his brother of Boston, and other gentlemen, who were opposed to the Salem proceedings.--E. P." The fact that Belknap endorsed this statement, gives it sufficient credibility. Who the "E. P." was, from whom it was derived, is not known. If it were either of the Ebenezer Pembertons, father or son, no higher authority could be adduced. But whatever aid Calef received, he so thoroughly digested and appropriated, as to make him ready to meet Mather or any, or all, the other Ministers, for conference and debate; and his title to the authorship of the papers remains complete. The Ministers did not give him the satisfaction he sought. They were paralyzed by the influence or the fear of the Mathers. Perhaps they were shocked, if not indignant, at a layman's daring to make such a movement against a Minister. It was an instance of the laying of unsanctified hands on the horns of the altar, such as had not been equalled in audacity, since the days of Anne Hutchinson, by any but Quakers. Calef, however, was determined to compel the attention of the world, if he could not that of the Ministers of Boston, to the subject; and he prepared, and sent to England, to be printed, a book, containing all that had passed, and more to the same purpose. It consists of several parts. PART I. is _An account of the afflictions of Margaret Rule_, written by Cotton Mather, under the title of _Another Brand plucked out of the Burning, or more Wonders of the Invisible World_. In my book, the case of Margaret Rule is spoken of as having occurred the next "Summer" after the witchcraft delusion in Salem. This gives the Reviewer a chance to strike at me, in his usual style, as follows: "The case did not occur in the Summer; the date is patent to any one who will look for it." Cotton Mather says that she "first found herself to be formally besieged by the spectres," on the tenth of September. From the preceding clauses of the same paragraph, it might be inferred that she had had fits before. He speaks of those, on the tenth, as "the first I'll mention." The word "formally," too, almost implies the same. This, however, must be allowed to be the smallest kind of criticism, although uttered by the Reviewer in the style of a petulant pedagogue. If Summer is not allowed to borrow a little of September, it will sometimes not have much to show, in our climate. The tenth of September is, after all, fairly within the astronomical Summer. The Reviewer says it will be "difficult for me to prove" that Margaret Rule belonged to Mr. Mather's Congregation, before September, 1693. Mather vindicates his taking such an interest in her case, on the ground that she was one of his "poor flock." The Reviewer raises a question on this point; and his controversy is with Mather, not with me. If Rule did not belong to the Congregation of North Boston, when Mather first visited her, his language is deceptive, and his apology, for meddling with the case, founded in falsehood. I make no such charge, and have no such belief. The Reviewer seems to have been led to place Cotton Mather in his own light--in fact, to falsify his language--on this point, by what is said of another Minister's having visited her, to whose flock she belonged, and whom she called, "Father." This was Increase Mather. We know he visited her; and it was as proper for him to do so, as for Cotton. They were associate Ministers of the same Congregation--that to which the girl belonged--and it was natural that she should have distinguished the elder, by calling him "Father." In contradiction of another of my statements, the Reviewer says: "Mr. Mather did not publish an account of the long-continued fastings, or any other account of the case of Margaret Rule." He seems to think that "published" means "printed." It does not necessarily mean, and is not defined as exclusively meaning, to put to press. To be "published," a document does not need, now, to be printed. Much less then. Mather wrote it, as he says, with a view to its being printed, and put it into open and free circulation. Calef publicly declared that he received it from "a gentleman, who had it of the author, and communicated it to use, with his express consent." Mather says, in a prefatory note: "I now lay before you a very entertaining story," "of one who been prodigiously handled by the evil Angels." "I do not write it with a design of throwing it presently into the press, but only to preserve the memory of such memorable things, the forgetting whereof would neither be pleasing to God, nor useful to men." The unrestricted circulation of a work of this kind, with such a design, was _publishing_ it. It was the form in which almost every thing was published in those days. If Calef had omitted it, in a book professing to give a true and full account of his dealings with Mather, in the Margaret Rule case, he would have been charged with having withheld Mather's carefully prepared view of that case. Mather himself considered the circulation of his "account," as a publication, for in speaking of his design of ultimately printing it himself, he calls it a "farther publication." PART II. embraces the correspondence between Calef, Mather, and others, which I have particularly described. PART III. is a brief account of the Parish troubles, at Salem Village. PART IV. is a correspondence between Calef and a gentleman, whose name is not given, on the subject of witchcraft, the latter maintaining the views then prevalent. PART V. is _An impartial account of the most memorable matters of fact, touching the supposed witchcraft in New England_, including the "Report" of the Trials given by Mather in his _Wonders of the Invisible World_. The work is prefaced by an _Epistle to the Reader_, couched in plain but pungent language, in which he says: "It is a great pity that the matters of fact, and indeed the whole, had not been done by some abler hand, better accomplished, and with the advantages of both natural and acquired judgment; but, others not appearing, I have enforced myself to do what is done. My other occasions will not admit any further scrutiny therein." A Postscript contains some strictures on the _Life of Sir Wm. Phips_, then recently printed, "which book," Calef says, "though it bear not the author's name, yet the style, manner, and matter are such, that, were there no other demonstration or token to know him by, it were no witchcraft to determine that Mr. Cotton Mather is the author of it." The real agency of Sir William Phips, in demolishing, with one stern blow, the Court of Oyer and Terminer, and treading out the witchcraft prosecutions, has never, until recently, been known. The Records of the Council, of that time, were obtained from England, not long since. They, with the General Court Records, Phips's letter to the Home Government--copied in this article--and the Diary of Judge Sewall, reveal to us the action of the brave Governor, and show how much that generation and subsequent times are indebted to him, for stopping, what, if he had allowed it to go on, would have come, no man can tell "where at last." Calef speaks of Sir William, kindly: "It is not doubted but that he aimed at the good of the people; and great pity it is that his Government was so sullied (for want of better information and advice from those whose duty it was to have given it) by the hobgoblin Monster, Witchcraft, whereby this country was nightmared and harassed, at such a rate as is not easily imagined." Such were the contents, and such the tone, of Calef's book. The course he pursued, his carefulness to do right and to keep his position fortified as he advanced, and the deliberate courage with which he encountered the responsibilities, connected with his movement to rid the country of a baleful superstition, are worthy of grateful remembrance. Mather received intelligence that Calef had sent his book to England, to be printed; and his mind was vehemently exercised in reference to it. He set apart the tenth of June, 1698, for a private Fast on the occasion; and he commenced the exercise of the day, by, "first of all, declaring unto the Lord" that he freely forgave Calef, and praying "the Lord also to forgive him." He "pleaded with the Lord," saying that the design of this man was to hurt his "precious opportunities of glorifying" his "glorious Lord Jesus Christ." He earnestly besought that those opportunities might not be "damnified" by Calef's book. And he finished by imploring deliverance from his calumnies. So "I put over my calumnious adversary into the hands of the righteous God." On the fifth of November, Calef's book having been received in Boston, Mather again made it the occasion of Fasting and Praying. His friends also spent a day of prayer, as he expresses it, "to complain unto God," against Calef, he, Mather, meeting with them. On the twenty-fifth of November, he writes thus, in his Diary: "The Lord hath permitted Satan to raise an extraordinary Storm upon my father and myself. All the rage of Satan, against the holy churches of the Lord, falls upon us. First Calf's and then Colman's, do set the people into a mighty ferment." The entries in his Diary, at this time, show that he was exasperated, to the highest degree, against Calef, to whom he applies such terms as, "a liar," "vile," "infamous," imputing to him diabolical wickedness. He speaks of him as "a weaver;" and, in a pointed manner calls him _Calf_, a mode of spelling his name sometimes practised, but then generally going out of use. The probability is that the vowel _a_, formerly, as in most words, had its broad sound, so that the pronunciation was scarcely perceptibly different, when used as a dissyllable or monosyllable. As the broad sound became disused, to a great extent, about this time, the name was spoken, as well as spelled, as a dissyllable, the vowel having its long sound. It was written, _Calef_, and thus printed, in the title-page of his book; so that Mather's variation of it was unjustifiable, and an unworthy taunt. It is unnecessary to say that a fling at a person's previous occupation, or that of his parents--an attempt to discredit him, in consequence of his having, at some period of his life, been a mechanic or manufacturer--or dropping, or altering a letter in his name, does not amount to much, as an impeachment of his character and credibility, as a man or an author. Hard words, too, in a heated controversy, are of no account whatever. In this case, particularly, it was a vain and empty charge, for Mather to call Calef _a liar_. In the matter of the account, the latter drew up, of what took place in the chamber of Margaret Rule: as he sent it to Mather for correction, and as Mather specified some items which he deemed erroneous, his declaration that all the rest was a tissue of falsehoods, was utterly futile; and can only be taken as an unmeaning and ineffectual expression of temper. So far as the truthfulness of Calef's statements, generally, is regarded, there is no room left for question. In his Diary for February, 1700, Mather says, speaking of the "calumnies that Satan, by his instrument, _Calf_, had cast upon" him and his father, "the Lord put it into the hearts of a considerable number of our flock, who are, in their temporal condition, more equal unto our adversary, to appear in our vindication." A Committee of seven, including John Goodwin, was appointed for this purpose. They called upon their Pastors to furnish them with materials; which they both did. The Committee drew up, as Mather informs us, in his Diary, a "handsome answer unto the slanders and libels of our slanderous adversary," which was forthwith printed, with the names of the members of the Committee signed to it. The pamphlet was entitled, _Some Few Remarks_, &c. Mather says of it: "The Lord blesses it, for the illumination of his people in many points of our endeavour to serve them, whereof they had been ignorant; and there is also set before all the Churches a very laudable example of a people appearing to vindicate their injured Pastors, when a storm of persecution is raised against them." This vindication is mainly devoted to the case of the Goodwin children, twelve years before, and to a defence of the course of Increase Mather, in England, in reference to the Old and New Charters. No serious attempt was made to controvert material points in Calef's book, relating to Salem Witchcraft. As it would have been perfectly easy, by certificates without number, to have exposed any error, touching that matter, and as no attempt of the kind was made, on this or any other occasion, the only alternative left is to accept Hutchinson's conviction, that "Calef was a fair relator" of that passage in our history. His book has, therefore, come down to us, bearing the ineffaceable stamp of truth. It was so regarded, at the time, in England, as shown in the manner in which it was referred to by Francis Hutchinson and Daniel Neal; and in America, in the way in which Thomas Hutchinson speaks of Calef, and alludes to matters as stated by him. I present, entire, the judgment of Dr. John Eliot, as given in his _Biographical Dictionary_. Bearing in mind that Eliot's work was published in 1806, the reader is left to make his own comments on the statement, in the _North American Review_, that I originated, in 1831, the unfavorable estimate of Cotton Mather's agency in the witchcraft delusion of 1692. It is safe to say that no higher authority can be cited than that of John Eliot: "CALEF, ROBERT, merchant, in the town of Boston, rendered himself famous by his book against Witchcraft, when the people of Massachusetts were under the most strange kind of delusion. The nature of this crime, so opposite to all common sense, has been said to exempt the accusers from observing the rules of common sense. This was evident from the trials of witches, at Salem, in 1692. Mr. Calef opposed facts, in the simple garb of truth, to fanciful representations; yet he offended men of the greatest learning and influence. He was obliged to enter into a controversy, which he managed with great boldness and address. His letters and defence were printed, in a volume, in London, in 1700. Dr. Increase Mather was then President of Harvard College; he ordered the wicked book to be burnt in the College yard; and the members of the Old North Church published a defence of their Pastors, the Rev. Increase and Cotton Mather. The pamphlet, printed on this occasion, has this title-page: _Remarks upon a scandalous book, against the Government and Ministry of New England, written by Robert Calef_, &c. Their motto was, _Truth will come off conqueror_, which proved a satire upon themselves, because Calef obtained a complete triumph. The Judges of the Court and the Jury confessed their errors; the people were astonished at their own delusion; reason and common sense were evidently on Calef's side; and even the present generation read his book with mingled sentiments of pleasure and admiration." Calef's book continues, to this day, the recognized authority on the subject. Its statements of matters of fact, not disputed nor specifically denied by the parties affected, living at the time, nor attempted to be confuted, then, and by them, never can be. The current of nearly two centuries has borne them beyond all question. No assault can now reach them. No writings of Mather have ever received more evidence of public interest or favor. First printed in London, Calef's volume has gone through four American editions; the last, in 1861, edited by Samuel P. Fowler, is presented in such eligible type and so readable a form, as to commend it to favorable notice. It may be safely said that few publications have produced more immediate or more lasting effects. It killed off the whole business of Margaret Rule. Mather abandoned it altogether. In 1694, he said "the forgetting thereof would neither be pleasing to God nor useful to men." Before Calef had done with him, he had dropped it forever. Calef's book put a stop to all such things, in New and Old England. It struck a blow at the whole system of popular superstition, relating to the diabolical world, under which it reels to this day. It drove the Devil out of the preaching, the literature, and the popular sentiments of the world. The traces of his footsteps, as controlling the affairs of men and interfering with the Providence of God, are only found in the dark recesses of ignorance, the vulgar profanities of the low, and a few flash expressions and thoughtless forms of speech. No one can appreciate the value of his service. If this one brave man had not squarely and defiantly met the follies and madness, the priestcraft and fanaticism, of his day; if they had been allowed to continue to sway Courts and Juries; if the pulpit and the press had continued to throw combustibles through society, and, in every way, inflame the public imaginations and passions, what limit can be assigned to the disastrous consequences? Boston Merchants glory in the names, on their proud roll of public benefactors, of men whose wisdom, patriotism, and munificence have upheld, adorned, and blessed society; but there is no one of their number who encountered more danger, showed more moral and intellectual prowess, or rendered more noble service to his fellow citizens and fellow men, every where, than ROBERT CALEF. I again ask attention to the language used in the _North American Review_, for April, 1869. "These views, respecting Mr. Mather's connection with the Salem trials, are to be found IN NO PUBLICATION OF A DATE PRIOR TO 1831, when Mr. Upham's _Lectures_ were published." Great as may be the power of critical journals, they cannot strike into non-existence, the recorded and printed sentiments of Brattle, the Hutchinsons, Neal, Watts, Bentley, Eliot, Quincy, and Calef. XX. MISCELLANEOUS REMARKS. CONCLUSION. There are one or two minor points, where the Reviewer finds occasion to indulge in his peculiar vein of criticism on my book, which it is necessary to notice before closing, in order to prevent wrong impressions being made by his article, touching the truth of history. A pamphlet, entitled, _Some Miscellany Observations on our present debates respecting Witchcraft, in a Dialogue between S and B_, has been referred to. It was published in Philadelphia, in 1692. Its printing was procured by Hezekiah Usher, a leading citizen of Boston, who, at the later stages of the prosecution, had been cried out upon, by the accusing girls, and put under arrest. Its author was understood to be the Rev. Samuel Willard. The Reviewer claims for its writer precedence over the Rev. John Wise, of Ipswich, and Robert Pike, of Salisbury, as having earlier opposed the proceedings. Wise headed a Memorial, in favor of John Proctor and against the use of spectral evidence, before the trials that took place on the fifth of August; and Pike's second letter to Judge Corwin was dated the eighth of August. The pamphlet attributed to Willard is a spirited and able performance; but seems to allow the use of spectral evidence, when bearing against persons of "ill-fame." Pike concedes all that believers in the general doctrines of witchcraft demanded, particularly the ground taken in the pamphlet attributed to Willard, and then proceeds, by the most acute technical logic, based upon solid common sense, to overturn all the conclusions to which the Court had been led. It was sent, by special messenger, to a Judge on the Bench, who was also an associate with Pike at the Council Board of the Province. Wise's paper was addressed to the Court of Assistants, the Supreme tribunal of the Province. The _Miscellany Observations_, appear to have been written after the trials. There is nothing, however, absolutely to determine the precise date; and they were published anonymously, in Philadelphia. The right of Wise and Pike to the credit of having first, by written remonstrance, opposed the proceedings, on the spot, cannot, I think, be taken away. The Reviewer charges me, in reference to one point, with not having thought it necessary to "pore over musty manuscripts, in the obscure chirography of two centuries ago." So far as my proper subject could be elucidated by it, I am constrained to claim, that this labor was encountered, to an extent not often attempted. The files of Courts, and State, County, Town, and Church records, were very extensively and thoroughly studied out. So far as the Court papers, belonging to the witchcraft Examinations and Trials, are regarded, much aid was derived from _Records of Salem Witchcraft, copied from the original documents_, printed in 1864, by W. Eliot Woodward. But such difficulty had been experienced in deciphering them, that the originals were all subjected to a minute re-examination. The same necessity existed in the use of the _Annals of Salem_, prepared and published by that most indefatigable antiquary, the late Rev. Joseph B. Felt, LL.D. In writing a work for which so little aid could be derived from legislative records or printed sources, bringing back to life a generation long since departed, and reproducing a community and transaction so nearly buried in oblivion, covering a wide field of genealogy, topography and chronology, embracing an indefinite variety of municipal, parochial, political, social, local, and family matters, and of things, names, and dates without number, it was, after all, impossible to avoid feeling that many errors and oversights might have been committed; and, as my only object was to construct a true and adequate history, I coveted, and kept myself in a frame gratefully to receive all corrections and suggestions, with a view of making the work as perfect as possible, in a reprint. As I was reasonably confident that the ground under me could stand, at all important points, any assaults of criticism, made in the ordinary way, it gave me satisfaction to hear, as I did, in voices of rumor reaching me from many quarters, that an article was about to appear in the _North American Review_ that would "demolish" my book. I flattered myself that, whether it did or not, much valuable information would, at least, be received, that would enable me to make my book more to my purpose, by making it more true to history. After the publication of the article, and before I could extricate myself from other engagements so far as to look into it, I read, in editorials, from week to week, in newspapers and journals, that I had been demolished. Surely, I thought, some great errors have been discovered, some precious "original sources" opened, some lost records exhumed, so that now, at last, no matter by whom, the story of Salem witchcraft can be told. My disappointment may be imagined, when, upon examining the article, it appeared that only one error had been discovered in my book, and that I now proceed to acknowledge. The Reviewer says: "Thomas Brattle, the Treasurer of Harvard College, (not William Brattle, a merchant of Boston, as Mr. Upham states) wrote, at the time, an account of Salem Witchcraft." This was not an error of the press, but wholly my own, as it is in the "copy," sent to the printers. In finding the interesting relations held by the Rev. William Brattle with the Salem Village Parish, after the death of Mr. Green, he being called to act as their patron and guide, and eventually marrying Green's widow, his name became familiar to my thoughts, and slipped through my pen. Every one who has gone through the drudgery of proof-reading knows what ridiculous and, sometimes, frightful, errors are detected, even in the "last revise." Upon opening the volume, when it came to me from the binder, I saw this error and immediately informed my publishers. It is pleasing to think that it cost the Reviewer no pains to discover it, as the right name stands out in the caption of the article, which is in capital letters--_Massachusetts Historical Collections, I., v., 61_--where alone he or I could have seen it. Mistakes in names and dates--always provoking, often inexplicable--are a fate to which all are liable. In a friendly, elaborate, and able notice of my book, in a newspaper of high character, it is stated that Salem Village, was the home of the family which gave General Rufus Putnam to "the War of 1812;" and George Burroughs is called "_John_" Burroughs. It is sometimes as hard to correct an error, as it is easy to fall into one. In pointing out my inadvertent mistake, the Reviewer unwittingly reproduces it. His sentence, just quoted, is liable to convey the idea that William Brattle was "a merchant of Boston." As he has been kind enough, all through his article, to tell what I ought to have read, and seen, and done, I venture to suggest that his sentence ought to have been constructed thus: "Thomas Brattle, a merchant of Boston, (not William, as Mr. Upham says.)" A queer fatality seems to have attended this attempt to correct my error. A reader of the _North American Review_ cannot fail to have noticed the manner in which the late Rev. Dr. Peabody, as well as myself, is held up to ridicule, for having called Cotton Mather, "Dr." when referring to any thing previous to his having received his Doctorate. Perhaps we were excusable. By usage, such honorary titles, and indeed all titles, are applied retrospectively, running back over the life, indefinitely. The _Encyclopædia Americana_, Eliot's _Biographical Dictionary_, and one of the last numbers of the _Historic Genealogical Register_, all give that title to Increase Mather, referring to a period anterior to its having been conferred upon him. The title was given by the learned editor of the _Massachusetts Historical Collections_, to Cotton Mather, in the caption of his letter to Governor Dudley. In the _Mather Papers_, letters written a score of years before that degree had been conferred on him, are endorsed "Doctor Cotton Mather." If the high authority of the _North American Review_ is to establish it, as a literary canon, that titles are never to be given, except in relation to a period subsequent to their conferment, writers must, hereafter, be very careful, when cursorily alluding to anything in the earlier lives of the Duke of Marlborough, Lord Castlereagh, the Duke of Wellington, Doctor Franklin, Doctor Channing, or Doctor Priestley, to say, Mr. Churchill, Mr. Stewart, Mr. Wellesley, Mr. Franklin, Mr. Channing, or Mr. Priestley. What renders this making of a great matter out of so trivial a point, by our Reviewer, amusing, as well as ridiculous, is that he is the first to break his own rule. "'Tis the sport to have the engineer Hoist with his own petard." The critic is caught by his own captions criticism. In the passage, pointing out the error in the name of Brattle, he calls him, "at the time" he wrote the account of Salem witchcraft, "the Treasurer of Harvard College." Brattle held not then, and never had held, that honorable trust and title, though subsequently appointed to the office. It is not probable that Cotton Mather will ever find a biographer more kind and just than the late W. B. O. Peabody, whose mild and pleasant humor was always kept under the sway of a sweet spirit of candor and benevolence, and who has presented faithfully all the good points and services of his subject--_Sparks's American Biography, Vol. VI._ But the knight errant who has just centered the lists, brandishing his spear against all who have uttered a lisp against Cotton Mather, goes out of his way to strike at Doctor Peabody. He inserts, at the foot of one of his pages, this sneering Note: "Mr. Peabody says; 'Little did the venerable Doctor think,' etc. The venerable Doctor was twenty-nine years of age! and was no Doctor at all." Let us see how the ridicule of the Reviewer can be parried by his own weapons. Indulging myself, for a moment, in his style, I have, to say that "this Reviewer has never seen" Worcester's Dictionary, nor Webster's Dictionary, in neither of which does time or age enter into the definition of _venerable_. The latter gives the sense as follows: "Rendered sacred by religious associations, or being consecrated to God and to his worship; to be regarded with awe, and treated with reverence." Further: "This Reviewer should have been familiar enough with the original sources of information on this subject," to have known that it was common, in those days, to speak and think of such persons as Cotton Mather, although not old in years, as "venerable." All the customs, habits, ideas, and sentiments of the people invested them with character. Their costume and bearing favored it. The place they filled, and the power they exercised, imparted awe and veneration, whatever their years. All that age could contribute to command respect was anticipated and brought, to gather round the young Minister, when hands were laid upon him, at his ordination, by the title he thenceforth wore, of "Elder." By his talents, learning, and ambition, Cotton Mather had become recognized as a "Father in the Church;" and his aspect, as he stood in the pulpit of "North Boston," fulfilled the idea of venerableness. And we find that this very term was applied to the representative centre of a consecrated family, in the "Attestation" to the _Magnalia_, written by John Higginson, venerable in years, as in all things else, in some Latin lines of his composure: "_Venerande Mathere_." In the popular eye, Cotton Mather concentrated all the sacred memories of the great "decemvirate," as Higginson called it, of the Mathers, who had been set apart as Ministers of God; and he was venerable, besides, in the associations connected with the hallowed traditions of his maternal grandfather, whose name he bore, John Cotton. An object is _venerable_, whether it be a person, a building, a locality, or any thing else, around which associations gather, that inspire reverence. Age, in itself, suggests the sentiment, if its natural effect is not marred by unworthiness; so does wisdom. Virtue is venerable, whatever the age. So are all great traits of character; and so is every thing that brings to the mind consecrated thoughts and impressions. There was much in Mather's ancestry, name, and office, to suggest the term, without any regard whatever to his years. If applied to him by the people of that day, or by a writer now, in reference to any period of his life after entering the ministry and being classed with the Elders of the Church and the land, it was entirely legitimate and appropriate. While acknowledging the one error, detected by the Reviewer, I avail myself of the opportunity to apprise those who have my book of a probable error, not discovered by him. In Vol. II., p. 208, the name of "Elizabeth Carey" is given among those for whose arrest Warrants were issued, on the twenty-eighth of May, 1692. On page 238, the name "Elizabeth Cary" is again mentioned. The facts are, that Calef, (_p. 95_,) says: "MAY 24TH: Mrs. Carey, of Charlestown, was examined and committed. Her husband, Mr. Nathaniel Carey, has given account thereof, as also of her escape, to this effect." He then gives a letter going into much interesting detail, evidently written by her husband, and signed "Jonathan Carey." Hutchinson (_History, ii., 49_,) repeats Calef's account, calling the woman, "Elizabeth, wife of Nathaniel;" and gives the substance of her husband's letter, without attempting to explain, or even noticing, the discrepancy as to the name of the husband. Not knowing what to make of it, I examined the miscellaneous mass of papers, in the Clerk's office, and found, on a small scrip, the original Complaint, on which the Warrant was issued. It is the only paper, relating to the case, in existence, or at least to be found here. In it, the woman is described as "Elizabeth, the wife of Capt. Nathaniel Carey of Charlestown, mariner." This seemed to settle it and I let it pass, without attempting to explain how "Jonathan Carey" came to appear as the husband of the woman, in the letter signed by that name. I am now quite convinced that, in this case, I was misled, together with Calef and Hutchinson, by paying too much regard to "original sources." I am satisfied that the authority of the letter of "Jonathan Carey," must stand; that the woman was his wife, "Hannah;" and that the error is in the original "Complaint," here on file. The facts, probably, were, that, it being rumored in Charlestown that a Mrs. Carey was "cried out upon," without its being known which Mrs. Carey it was, Jonathan, determined to meet the matter at the threshold, took his wife directly to the spot. He arrived at Salem Village, in the midst of a great excitement, bringing together a crowd of people, half crazed under the terrors of the hour. Nobody knew him, which would not have been so likely to have been the case with his brother, Nathaniel, who was a more conspicuous character. He could find no one he knew, except Mr. Hale, who was formerly a Charlestown man, and whom he soon lost in the confusion of the scene. The accusing girls were on the look out, and noticing these two strangers, enquired their names, and were told, _Mr. and Mrs. Carey_. They had been crying out upon _Elizabeth Carey_, and thinking they had her, informed Thomas Putnam and Benjamin Hutchinson, two persons perfectly deluded by them, who instantly drew up the Complaint. In the hurry and horrors of the moment, the error in the names was not discovered: _Jonathan_ and _Hannah_ were sent forthwith to prison, from which they broke, and escaped to New York. The girls, thinking they had got _Mrs. Elizabeth Carey_ in prison, said no more about it. As Jonathan and his wife were safe, and beyond reach, the whole matter dropped out of the public mind; and Mrs. Elizabeth remained undisturbed. This is the only way in which I can account for the strange incongruity of the statements, as found in the "Complaint," Calef, and Hutchinson. The letter of Jonathan Carey is decisive of the point that it was "Hannah," his wife, that was arrested, and escaped. The error in Calef was not discovered by him, as his book was printed in London; and, under the general disposition to let the subject pass into oblivion, if possible, no explanation was ever given. I cannot let the letter of Jonathan Carey pass, without calling to notice his statement that, upon reaching New York, they found "His Excellency, Benjamin Fletcher, Esq., very courteous" to them. Whatever multiplies pleasant historical reminiscences and bonds of association between different States, ought to be gathered up and kept fresh in the minds of all. The fact that when Massachusetts was suffering from a fiery and bloody, but brief, persecution by its own Government, New York opened so kind and secure a shelter for those fortunate enough to escape to it, ought to be forever held in grateful remembrance by the people of the old Bay State, and constitutes a part of the history of the Empire State, of which she may well be proud. If the historians and antiquaries of the latter State can find any traces, in their municipal or other archives, or in any quarter, of the refuge which the Careys and others found among them, in 1692, they would be welcome contributions to our history, and strengthen the bonds of friendly union. The Reviewer seems to imagine that, by a stroke of his pen, he can, at any time, make history. Referring to Governor Winthrop, in connection with the case of Margaret Jones, forty-two years before, he says that he "presided at her Trial; signed her Death-warrant; and wrote the report of the case in his journal." The fact that, in his private journal, he has a paragraph relating to it, hardly justifies the expression "wrote the report of the case." Where did he, our Reviewer, find authority for the positive statement that Winthrop "signed the Death-warrant?" We have no information, I think, as to the use of Death-warrants, as we understand such documents to be, in those days; and especially are we ignorant as to the official who drew and signed the Order for the execution of a capital convict. Sir William Phips, although present, did not sign the Death-warrant of Bridget Bishop. The Reviewer expresses, over and over again, his great surprise at the view given in my book of Cotton Mather's connection with Salem witchcraft. It is quite noticeable that his language, to this effect, was echoed through that portion of the Press committed to his statements. My sentiments were spoken of as "surprising errors." What I had said was, as I have shown, a mere continuation of an ever-received opinion; and it was singular that it gave such a widespread simultaneous shock of "surprise." But that shock went all around. I was surprised at their surprise; and may be allowed, as well as the Reviewer, to express and explain that sensation. It was awakened deeply and forcibly by the whole tenor of his article. He was the first reader of my book, it having been furnished him by the Publishers before going to the binder. He wrote an elaborate, extended, and friendly notice of it, in a leading paper of New York city, kindly calling it "a monument of historical and antiquarian research;" "a narrative as fascinating as the latest novel;" and concluding thus: "Mr. Upham deserves the thanks of the many persons interested in psychological inquiries, for the minute details he has given of these transactions." Some criticisms were suggested, in reference to matters of form in the work; _but not one word was said about Cotton Mather_. The change that has come over the spirit of his dream is more than surprising. The reference, in the foregoing citation, to "psychological enquiries," suggests to me to allude, before closing, to remarks made by some other critics. I did not go into the discussion, with any particularity, of the connection, if any, between the witchcraft developments of 1692 and modern spiritualism, in any of its forms. A fair and candid writer observes that "the facts and occurrences," as I state them, involve difficulties which I "have not solved." There are "depths," he continues, "in this melancholy episode, which his plummet has not sounded, by a great deal." This is perfectly true. With a full conviction that the events and circumstances I was endeavoring to relate, afforded more material for suggestions, in reference to the mysteries of our spiritual nature, than any other chapter in history, I carefully abstained, with the exception of a few cautionary considerations hinting at the difficulties that encompass the subject, from attempting to follow facts to conclusions, in that direction. My sole object was to bring to view, as truthfully, thoroughly, and minutely, as I could, the phenomena of the case, as bare historical facts, from which others were left, to make their own deductions. This was the extent of the service I desired to render, in aid of such as may attempt to advance the boundaries of the spiritual department of science. I was content, and careful, to stay my steps. Feeling that the story I was telling led me along the outer edge of what is now knowledge--that I was treading the shores of the _ultima Thule_, of the yet discovered world of truth--I did not venture upon the world beyond. My only hope was to afford some data to guide the course of those who may attempt to traverse it. Other hands are to drop the plummet into its depths, and other voyagers feel their way over its surface to continents that are waiting, as did this Western Hemisphere, for ages upon ages, to be revealed. The belief that fields of science may yet be reached, by exploring the connection between the corporeal and spiritual spheres of our being, in which explorations the facts presented in the witchcraft Delusion may be serviceable, suggested one of the motives that led me to dedicate my volumes to the Professor of Physiology in Harvard University. The Reviewer concludes his article by saying that the "History of Salem witchcraft is as yet unwritten," but, that I must write it; and he tells me how to write it. He advises a more concise form, although his whole article consists of complaints because I avoided discussions and condensed documents, which, if fully gone into and spread out at length, would have swelled the dimensions of the work, as well as broken the thread of the narrative. It must be borne in mind, that a reader can only be held to the line of a subject, by an occasional retrospection and reiteration of what must be constantly kept in view. The traveler needs, at certain points and suitable stages, to turn and survey the ground over which he has passed. A condensation that would strike out such recapitulations and repetitions, might impair the effect of a work of any kind, particularly, of one embracing complicated materials. The Reviewer says that, "by all means, I must give references to authorities," when I quote. This, as a general thing, is good advice. But it must be remembered that my work consists of three divisions. The History of Salem Village constitutes the First. This is drawn, almost wholly, from papers in the offices of registry, and from judicial files of the County, to which references would be of little use, and serve only to cumber and deform the pages. Everything can be verified by inspection of the originals, and not otherwise. The Second Part is a cursory, general, abbreviated sketch or survey of the history of opinions, not designed as an authoritative treatise for special students, but to prepare the reader for the Third Part, the authorities for which are, almost wholly, Court files. As to the remaining suggestion, that I must divide the work into Chapters, with headings, there is something to be said. When the nature of an historical work admits of its being invested with a dramatic interest--and all history is capable, more or less, of having that attraction--where minute details can fill up the whole outline of characters, events, and scenes, all bearing the impress of truth and certainty, real history, being often stranger than fiction, may be, and ought to be, so written as to bring to bear upon the reader, the charm, and work the spell, of what is called romance. The same solicitude, suspense, and sensibilities, which the parties, described, experienced, can be imparted to the reader; and his feelings and affections keep pace with the developments of the story, as they arise with the progress of time and events. Headings to Chapters, in historical works, capable of this dramatic element, would be as out of place, and as much mar and defeat the effect, as in a novel. As for division into Chapters. This was much thought of and desired; but the nature of the subject presented obstacles that seem insurmountable. One topic necessarily ran into, or overlapped, another. No chronological unity, if the work had been thus cut up, could have been preserved; and much of the ground would have had to be gone over and over again. Examinations, Trials, Executions were, often, all going on at once. There is danger of a diminution of the continuous interest of some works, thus severed into fragments. There are, indeed, animals that will bear to be chopped up indefinitely, and each parcel retain its life: not so with others. The most important of all documents have suffered injury, not to be calculated, in their attractiveness and impressiveness, by being divided into Chapter and Verse, in many instances without reference to the unity of topics, or coherence of passages; dislocating the frame of narratives, and breaking the structure of sentences. We all know to what a ridiculous extent this practice was, for a long period, carried in Sermons, which were "divided" to a degree of artificial and elaborate dissection into "heads," that tasked to the utmost the ingenuity of the preacher, and overwhelmed the discernment and memory of the hearer. He, in fact, was thought the ablest sermonizer, who could stretch the longest string of divisions, up to the "nineteenthly," and beyond. This fashion has a prominent place among _The Grounds and Occasions of the Contempt of the Clergy and Religion_, by John Eachard, D.D., a work published in London, near the commencement of the last century--one of the few books, like Calef's, which have turned the tide, and arrested the follies, of their times. In bold, free, forcible satire, Eachard's book stands alone. Founded on great learning, inspired by genuine wit, its style is plain even to homeliness. It struck at the highest, and was felt and appreciated by the lowest. It reinforced the pulpit, simplified the literature, eradicated absurdities of diction and construction, and removed many of the ecclesiastic abuses, of its day. No work of the kind ever met with a more enthusiastic reception. I quote from the Eleventh Edition, printed in 1705: "We must observe, that there is a great difference in texts. For all texts come not asunder, alike; for sometimes the words naturally fall asunder; sometimes they drop asunder; sometimes they melt; sometimes they untwist; and there be some words so willing to be parted, that they divide themselves, to the great ease and rejoicing of the Minister. But if they will not easily come in pieces, then he falls to hacking and hewing, as if he would make all fly into shivers. The truth of it is, I have known, now and then, some knotty texts, that have been divided seven or eight times over, before they could make them split handsomely, according to their mind." An apology to those critics who have complained of my not dividing my book into Chapters, is found in the foregoing passage. I tried to do it, but found it a "knotty" subject, and, like the texts Eachard speaks of, "would not easily come in pieces." With all my efforts, it could not be made to "split handsomely." This, and all other suggestions of criticism, are gratefully received and respectfully considered. But, after all, it will not be well to establish any canons, to be, in all cases, implicitly obeyed, by all writers. Much must be left to individual judgment. Regard must be had to the nature of subjects. Instead of servile uniformity, variety and diversity must be encouraged. In this way, only, can we have a free, natural, living literature. In passing, I would say, that in meeting the demand made upon me by the Reviewer, to rewrite the history of Salem witchcraft, I shall avail myself of the opportunity to correct the single error he has mentioned. In a re-issue of the work, I shall endeavor to make it as accurate as possible. Anything that is found to be wrong shall be rectified. The work, in the different forms in which it was published, is nearly out of print. When issued again, it will be in a less costly style and more within the reach of all. From the result of my own continued researches and the suggestions of others, I feel inclined to the opinion that no very considerable alterations will be made; and that subsequent editions, will not impair the authority or value of the work, as originally published in 1867. In preparing the statement, now brought to a close, the only object has been to get at, and present, the real facts of history. Nothing, merely personal, affecting the writer in the _North American Review_ or myself, can be considered as of comparative moment. Many of the expressions used by that writer, as to what I have "seen" or "read" and the like, are, it must be confessed, rather peculiar; but of very little interest to the public. Any notice, taken of them, has been incidental, and such as naturally arose in the treatment of the subject. In parting with the reader, I venture so far further to tax his patience, as to ask to take a retrospective glance, together, over the outlines of the road we have travelled. In connection with some preliminary observations, the first step in the argument was to show the relation of the Mathers, father and son, to the superstitions of their times culminating in the Witchcraft Delusion of 1692, and their share of responsibility therefor. The several successive stages of the discussion were as follows:--The connection of Cotton Mather with alleged cases of Witchcraft in the family of John Goodwin of Boston, in 1688; and said Goodwin's certificates disposed of: Mather's idea of Witchcraft, as a war waged by the Devil against the Church; and his use of prayer: The connection between the cases, at Boston in 1688, and at Salem in 1692: The relation of the Mathers to the Government of Massachusetts, in 1692: The arrival of Sir William Phips; the impression made upon him by those whom he first met; his letter to the Government in England: The circumstances attending the establishment of the Special Court of Oyer and Terminer, and the precipitance with which it was put into operation: Its proceedings, conducted by persons in the interest of the Mathers: Spectral Testimony; and the extent to which it was authorized by them to be received at the Trials, as affording grounds of enquiry and matter of presumption: Letter of Cotton Mather to one of the Judges: The Advice of the Ministers: Cotton Mather's probable plan for dealing with spectral evidence: His views on that subject, as gathered from his writings and declarations: The question of his connection with the Examinations before the Magistrates: His connection with the Trials and Executions: His Report of five of the Trials: His book entitled _The Wonders of the Invisible World_; its design; the circumstances attending its preparation for the press; and the views, feelings, and expectations of its author, exhibited in extracts from it: Increase Mather's _Cases of Conscience_: The suppression of the Court of Oyer and Terminer, by Sir William Phips: Cotton Mather's views subsequent to 1692, as gathered from his writings. In traversing the field thus marked out, I submit that it has become demonstrated that, while Cotton Mather professed concurrence in the generally-received judgment of certain writers against the reception of spectral evidence, he approved of the manner in which it had been received by the Judges, at the Salem Trials, and eulogized them throughout, from the beginning to the end of the prosecution, and ever after. He vindicated, as a general principle, the _admission_ of that species of testimony, on the ground of its being a sufficient basis of enquiry and presumption, and needing only some additional evidence,--his own Report and papers on file show how little was required--to justify conviction and execution. This has been proved, at large, by an examination of his writings and actions, and is fully admitted by him, in various forms of language, on several occasions--substantially, in his statement, that Spectral Testimony was the "chief" ground upon which "divers" were condemned and executed, and, explicitly, in his letter to Foster, in which he says that "a very great use is to be made" of it, in the manner and to the extent just mentioned; and that, when thus used, the "use for which the Great God intended it," will be made. In the same passage, he commends the Judge for having admitted it; and declares they had the divine blessing thereupon, inasmuch as "God strangely sent other convincing testimony," to corroborate, and thereby render it sufficient to convict. In his Address to the General Assembly, years afterward, he fully admits that the Judges, in 1692, whose course he applauded at the time, allowed persons to be adjudged guilty, "merely because" of Spectral Testimony. My main purpose and duty, in preparing this article, have been to disprove the absolute and unlimited assertions made by the contributor to the _North American Review_, that Cotton Mather was opposed to the _admission_ of Spectral Evidence; "denounced it as illegal, uncharitable, and cruel;" and "ever testified against it, both publicly and privately;" and that the _Advice of the Ministers_, drawn up by him, "was _very specific_ in _excluding_ Spectral Testimony." It has been thought proper, also, to vindicate the truth of history against the statements of this Reviewer, on some other points; as, for instance, by showing that the opinion of Cotton Mather's particular responsibility for the Witchcraft Tragedy, instead of originating with me, was held at the time, at home and abroad, and has come down, through an unbroken series of the most accredited writers, to our day; and that the influence of the Mathers never recovered from the shock given it, by the catastrophe of 1692. The apology for the great length of this article is, that the high authority justly accorded to the _North American Review_, demanded, in controverting any position taken in its columns, a thorough and patient investigation, and the production, in full, of the documents belonging to the question. It has further been necessary, in order to get at the predominating tendency and import of Cotton Mather's writings, to cite them, in extended quotations and numerous extracts. To avoid the error into which the Reviewer has fallen, the peculiarity of Mather's style must be borne in mind. Opposite drifts of expression appear in different writings and in different parts of the same writing; and, not infrequently, the clauses of the same passage have contrary bearings. He often palters, with himself as well as others, in a double sense. Quotations, to any amount, from the writings of either of the Mathers, of passages having the appearance of discountenancing spectral evidence, can be of no avail in sustaining the positions taken by the Reviewer, because they are qualified by the admission, that evidence of that sort might and ought, notwithstanding, to be received as a basis for enquiry and ground of presumption, and, if supported by other ordinary testimony, was sufficient for conviction. That other testimony, when adduced, was, as represented by Mather, clothed with a divine authority; having, as he says, been supplied by a special Providence, and been justly regarded, by the "excellent Judges," as "an encouraging presence of God, strangely sent in." It could, indeed, in the then state of the public mind, always be readily obtained. No matter how small in quantity or utterly irrelevant, it was sufficient for conviction coming after the Spectral Evidence. To minds thus subdued and overwhelmed with "awe," trifles light as air were confirmation strong. It is to be presumed that his warmest admirers would not think of comparing Cotton Mather with his transatlantic correspondent and coadjutor, as to force of character, power of mind, or the moral and religious value of their writings. Yet there were some striking similarities between them. They were men of undoubted genius and great learning. They were all their lives awake to whatever was going on around them. Earnestly interested, and actively engaging, in all questions of theology and government, they both rushed forthwith and incontinently to the press, until their publications became too voluminous and numerous to be patiently read or easily counted. Of course, what they printed was imbued with the changing aspects of the questions they handled and open to the imputation of inconsistency, of which Baxter was generally disregardful and Mather mostly unconscious. Sir Roger L'Estrange was one of the great wits and satirists of his age. His style was rough and reckless. A vehement and fierce upholder of the doctrines of arbitrary government, he was knighted by James the Second. His controversial writings, having all the attractions of unscrupulous invective and homely but cutting sarcasm, were much patronized by the great, and extensively read by the people. All Nonconformists and Dissenters were the objects of his coarse abuse. He issued an ingenious pamphlet with this title: "_The Casuist uncased; in a Dialogue betwixt Richard and Baxter, with a moderator between them, for quietness sake._" The two disputants range over a variety of subjects, and are quite vehement against each other; the Moderator interposing to keep them to the point, preserve order in the debate, and, as occasion required, reduce them to "quietness." At one stage of the altercation, he exclaimed: "If an Angel from Heaven, I perceive, were employed to bring you two to an agreement, he should lose his labor." Great was the amusement of all classes to find that the language uttered by the combatants, on each side, was taken from one or another of writings published by Richard Baxter, during his diversified controversial life. If any skilful and painstaking humorist of our day, should feel so disposed, he might, by wading through the sea of Cotton Mather's writings, pick up material enough for the purpose; and, by cutting in halves paragraphs and sentences, entertain us in the same way, by giving to the public, through the Press, "_A Dialogue betwixt COTTON and MATHER, with a Moderator between them for quietness sake._" THE HISTORICAL MAGAZINE; AND Notes and Queries concerning the Antiquities, History and Biography of America. This Magazine was commenced in January, 1857, for the purpose of furnishing a medium of intercommunication between Historical Societies, Authors, and Students of History, and supplying an interesting and valuable journal--a miscellany of American History. On the first of July, 1866, it passed into the hands of the undersigned, by whom it is still conducted, with the support and aid of a large body of intelligent readers, and the assistance of the foremost historical writers in the country. Among the contributors to the past volumes are Hon. Edward Everett, Hon. George Bancroft, Jared Sparks, LL.D., Hon. Peter Force, Hon. James Savage, Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, Wm. Gilmore Simms, Esq., Henry R. Stiles, M.D., Geo. Gibbs, Esq., Hon. John R. Brodhead, J. Carson Brevoort, Esq., Henry R. Schoolcraft, Esq., Benson J. Lossing, Esq., Hon. Henry C. Murphy, Samuel G. Drake, Esq., Sebastian F. Streeter, Esq., Alfred B. Street, Esq., E. B. O'Callaghan, LL.D., Prof. W. W. Turner, Buckingham Smith, Esq., Evert A. Duyckinck, Esq., Brantz Mayer, Esq., Hon. John R. Bartlett, Samuel F. Haven, Esq., Dr. R. W. Gibbs, John W. Francis, M.D., D. G. Brinton, M.D., George H. Moore, Esq., John G. Shea, LL.D., Rev. E. H. Gillett, D.D., John Ward Dean, Esq., Henry O'Reilly, Esq., Rev. Pliny H. White, Hon. E. E. Bourne, and Hon. Thomas Ewbank. The eleven volumes already published contain an immense mass of matter relating to American History and kindred studies, such as cannot be found collected elsewhere, rendering it a work absolutely necessary in all libraries. Few historical works now appear that do not acknowledge indebtedness to it. The Contents of the Historical Magazine may be generally classed under the following heads: I. Original Papers, involving points of research in historical studies, presenting new facts, or the discussion of Federal and Local topics of interest, in Essays, by writers versed in American History. II. The Collection of Original Letters, Correspondence, Diaries, &c., hitherto unpublished, of Americans of Eminence. III. Biographical and Obituary Notices of persons distinguished in the service of the country, whether in office, political life, literature, or science. IV. Accurate reports of the proceedings of the numerous American Historical, Antiquarian, Geographical, Numismatic, and other kindred Societies. V. Notes and Queries of curious and important topics, new and old, with replies, by a large body of contributors. VI. Reprints of rare and interesting Tracts, old Poems out of print, &c., &c. VII. Miscellany and Anecdotes. VIII. Carefully prepared and impartial Notices of New Books and Engravings, especially those relating to the History, Antiquities, or Biography of America. IX. Historical and Literary Intelligence, Announcements, &c. The Historical Magazine is printed on fine quality of paper, similar in form and size to this sheet, and published in monthly numbers, of sixty-four pages each, at FIVE DOLLARS A YEAR. Single numbers SEVENTY-FIVE CENTS. HENRY B. DAWSON, Morrisania, N. Y. CONTRIBUTORS TO VOLUME I, NEW SERIES. BERGEN, Hon. TUNIS, Bay Side, L. I. BRINTON, Doctor D. G., Westchester, Pennsylvania, the celebrated Ethnologist. BRODHEAD, Hon. J. ROMEYN, the historian of New York. DAWSON, HENRY B., author of _Battles of the United States_, etc. DEAN, JOHN WARD, Secretary of the New England Historic-Genealogical Society. ELLIS, Rev. GEORGE B., D.D., Charlestown, Massachusetts. EWBANK, Hon. THOMAS, Vice-president of the American Ethnological Society. FORCE, General PETER, Washington, D. C. GILLETT, Rev. E. H., D.D., the historian of the Presbyterian Church. KAPP, FRIEDRICH, the biographer of Steuben, De Kalb, etc. LAWRENCE, EUGENE, Columbia College, New York. MOORE, GEORGE H., Librarian of New York Historical Society. NEW YORK CITY, Corporation of. O'REILLY, HENRY, the veteran printer and telegraphist. ROCKWELL, Prof. E. F., Davidson College, North Carolina. SCOTT, BENJAMIN, Chamberlain of the City of London. SHEA, J. GILMARY, LL.D., historian of the Catholic Missions. SMITH, Hon. BUCKINGHAM, St. Augustine, Fl. STONE, WILLIAM L., biographer of Sir William Johnson, etc. WETMORE, General PROSPER M., New York. UNPUBLISHED ARTICLES BY ADAMS, SAMUEL, of Boston. ALLEN, ETHAN, of Vermont. ANDERSON, Lieut. THOMAS, of Delaware [His Diary during the Revolutionary War]. ASHLEY, Doctor JOHN, of Deerfield, Massachusetts. ASHMUN, Rev. J., Washington, D. C. BARKER, JACOB, New Orleans. BEATTY, Captain WILLIAM, of Maryland. [His Diary and Correspondence]. BENSON, EGBERT, on the Constitution of New York. BURR, AARON, of New York. CARROLL, CHARLES, of Carrollton. COLDEN, DAVID C., of New York. COOPER, J. FENIMORE, of New York. DEARBORN, General HENRY, of Massachusetts. DOWNING, EMANUAL, of England. DRAYTON, WILLIAM H., of South Carolina. DROWNE, Doctor SOLOMON, of Rhode Island. FITZHUGH, WILLIAM, of Virginia. FRANKLIN, BENJAMIN, of Pennsylvania. GERRY, ELBRIDGE, of Massachusetts. GREENE, General NATHANIEL, of Rhode Island. HOOPER, A. M. HOWELL, DAVID, of New Jersey. HUMPHREYS, Colonel DAVID, of Connecticut. HUNTINGTON, General JED., of Connecticut. JAY, JOHN, of New York. JEFFERSON, THOMAS, of Virginia. KENDALL, AMOS, [on the Jackson Cabinet.] KING, RUFUS, of New York. [On the Constitution of New York.] LA FAYETTE, General. LAURENS, HENRY, of South Carolina. "MASON and DIXON," the Surveyors. MILLER, General JAMES, of New Hampshire. MOOERS, General BENJAMIN, of Plattsburg, New York. MORRIS, ROBERT, of Pennsylvania. PAGET, Admiral, R.N. QUITMAN, General, of Mississippi. [Autobiographical letter.] RANDOLPH, JOHN, of Roanoke, Virginia. RIKER, Recorder RICHARD, of New York. RUSH, Doctor BENJAMIN, of Pennsylvania. TALLMADGE, Major BENJAMIN, of Connecticut. TOMPKINS, DANIEL D., of New York. VAN BUREN, MARTIN, of New York. WASHINGTON, General GEORGE. WHEELWRIGHT, Rev. JOHN, of Boston. [The celebrated Fast-day Sermon, for preaching which he was banished from Massachusetts.] WOLCOTT, OLIVER. CONTRIBUTORS TO VOLUME II, NEW SERIES. 1.--ORIGINAL ARTICLES. Hon. E. E. BOURNE, President of the Maine Historical Society. Rev. PLINY H. WHITE, President of the Vermont Historical Society. Hon. J. HAMMOND TRUMBULL, President of the Connecticut Historical Society. Hon. THOMAS EWBANK, Vice-president of the American Ethnological Society. GEORGE HENRY MOORE, Librarian of the New York Historical Society. Rev. Doctor BALLARD, Secretary of the Maine Historical Society. S. F. HAVEN, Librarian of the American Antiquarian Society. H. A. HOLMES, State Librarian, Albany. E. B. O'CALLAGHAN, LL.D. J. GILMARY SHEA, LL.D., New York City. Doctor E. H. DAVIS, the Ethnologist. Doctor D. G. BRINTON, Westchester, Penn. J. WINGATE THORNTON, Boston. Professor GEORGE W. GREENE, of Rhode Island. Hon. WILLIAM WILLIS, Portland, Me. W. GILMORE SIMMS, LL.D., of South Carolina. WILLIAM SWINTON, New York City. WILLIAM H. WHITMORE, Boston. Rev. E. H. GILLETT, D.D., Harlem, N. Y. Professor E. F. ROCKWELL, Davidson College, N. C. J. R. SIMMS, Fort Plain, N. Y. JAMES RIKER, Harlem, N. Y. CHARLES EDWARDS, New York. Captain E. C. BOYNTON, U.S.A., West Point. Colonel THOMAS F. DE VOE, "the historical Butcher." Captain GEORGE HENRY PREBLE, U.S.N. JOSEPH SABIN, New York. HENRY O'REILLY, New York. Doctor JOSEPH COMSTOCK, Liberty Hill, Conn. J. WILLIAMSON, Belfast, Me. Rev. A. H. QUINT, D.D., New Bedford, Mass. RUDOLPHE GARRIGUE, Morrisania, N. Y. Editors of the _Methodist_, New York. 2.--INEDITED ARTICLES. SAMUEL L. BOARDMAN, Augusta, Me. F. W. SEWARD, Assistant Secretary of State of the United States. THE CORPORATION OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK. BUCKINGHAM SMITH, St. Augustine, Fla. Professor GEORGE W. GREENE. Hon. JOHN SULLIVAN, Exeter, N. H. Professor RAU, New York. E. F. DE LANCEY, New York. 3.--WRITERS OF INEDITED PAPERS. Captain HENRY SEWALL, of the Revolutionary Army. SEU-KI-YU, Governor of Fuh-Kien, China. HARRISON GRAY OTIS. JEFFERSON DAVIS. JOHN ADAMS. General WADE HAMPTON, U.S.A. The Citizen GENET. General WASHINGTON. Colonel DAVID CROCKETT. General LA FAYETTE. RUFUS KING. General WINFIELD SCOTT, U.S.A. THOMAS JEFFERSON. Colonel HENRY MURRAY, R.A. CHARLES V., of Spain. Colonel DAVID HUMPHREYS, of the Revolutionary Army. Governor BELCHER, of Massachusetts. Reverend J. H. LIVINGSTON, D.D. CHARLES CARROLL, of Carrollton. SAMUEL HUNTINGTON, President of the Continental Congress. General WILLIAM HEATH, of the Revolutionary Army. General M. GIST, of the same. Colonel BENJAMIN TALLMADGE, of the same. Doctor B. RUSH. Governor THOMAS NELSON, of Virginia. SOLOMON DROWNE, M.D., of the Revolutionary Army. Lieutenant-governor COLDEN, of New York. General JOHN SULLIVAN, of the Revolutionary Army. HENRY CLAY. WILLIAM J. DUANE. Colonel RICHARD M. JOHNSON. JARED SPARKS, LL.D. Hon. ALEXANDER H. EVERETT. Major HENRY LEE. AARON BURR. JAMES MUNROE. ETC., ETC., ETC. CONTRIBUTORS TO VOLUME III, NEW SERIES. AMERICAN ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY, Worcester, Mass. BALLARD, D.D., Rev. EDWARD, Brunswick, Maine. Secretary of the Maine Historical Society. BALLARD, FRANK W., New York City. BARTLETT, Hon. J. RUSSELL, Providence. R. I. Secretary of State of Rhode Island. BLEECKER, R. WADE, New York City. BOARDMAN, SAMUEL L., Augusta, Maine. BOURNE, Hon. E. E., Kennebunk, Maine. President of the Maine Historical Society. BREVOORT, Hon. J. CARSON, Brooklyn. President of the L. I. Historical Society. BRODHEAD, J. ROMEYN, LL.D., New York. The historian of New York. BRINLEY, Hon. GEORGE, Hartford, Conn. BURNS, C. DEF., New York City. BUSHNELL, CHARLES J., New York City. DEAN, JOHN WARD, Boston, Mass. Author of _Life of Nathaniel Ward_, etc. DE COSTA, Rev. B. F., New York City. The historian of Lake George, etc. DE VOE, Colonel, THOMAS F., New York City. The historian of the Markets. DRAKE, SAMUEL G., Boston, Mass. The historian of the Town of Boston, etc. DUANE, Colonel WILLIAM, Philadelphia. DUNSHEE, HENRY W., New York City. The historian of the Dutch School, in N. Y. DUYCKINCK, EVERT A., New York City. Author of _Encylo. of Amer. Literature_, etc. EWBANK, Hon. THOMAS, New York City. V. P. of The American Ethnological Society. FISH, Hon. HAMILTON, New York City. President of the New York Historical Society. FRANCIS, LL.D., The late JOHN W., New York. GIBBS, GEORGE, Washington, D. C. Author of _The Administration of Washington and Adams_. GILLETT, D.D., Rev. E. H., Harlem, N. Y. The historian of the Presbyterian Church. GODFREY, JOHN E., Bangor, Maine. GREENE, Prof. GEORGE W., East Greenwich, R. I. Author of _Life of Gen. Nathaniel Greene_, etc. GREENWOOD, ISAAC J., New York City. HALL, Hon. HILAND, North Bennington, Vermont. Lately President of Vermont Historical Society. HATFIELD, D.D., Rev. E. F., New York City. The historian of Elizabeth-town, N. J., etc. HAY, Hon. WILLIAM, Saratoga Springs. HELMICK, C. C., Washington, D. C. HOFFMAN, FRANCIS S., New York City. IRVING, PIERRE, Tarrytown, New York. The biographer of Washington Irving. JONES, Colonel M. M., Utica, New York. Assistant Secretary of State of New York. KAPP, FRIEDRICH, New York City. Biographer of Generals Steuben, De Kalb, etc. KELBY, WILLIAM, New York City. Of the New York Historical Society. KETCHUM, Hon. EDGAR, Harlem, New York. LONG ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY, Brooklyn. MCCOY, JOHN F., Brooklyn, New York. MCKEEN, Doctor, Topsham, Maine. MCKNIGHT, CHARLES, Poughkeepsie, New York MOORE, GEORGE HENRY, LL.D., New York. Librarian of New York Historical Society. MORSE, C. H., Washington, D. C. NEILL, E. D., Washington, D. C. The historian of Minnesota. NEW YORK, CORPORATION OF THE CITY OF. O'CALLAGHAN, LL.D., E. B., Albany, N. Y. Historian of New Netherland. PAINE, NATHANIEL, Worcester, Massachusetts. Treasurer of the Amer. Antiquarian Society. PERRY, Rev. WILLIAM STEVENS, Litchfield, Conn. Secretary of House of Lay and Clerical Delegates of General Convention of P. E. Church. PREBLE, Captain GEORGE HENRY, U.S.N. ROCKWELL, Professor E. F., Davison's Col., N. C. RUSSELL, J., Washington, D. C. SARDEMANN, Rev. J. G., Weser, Germany. SCOTT, LEWIS A., Philadelphia. SCOTT, M. B., Cleveland, Ohio. SHEA, LL.D., JOHN GILMARY, Elizabeth, N. J. Historian of the Catholic Missions. SHEPPARD, J. H., Boston. Librarian of N. E. Historic Genealog. Society. SIGEL, General FRANZ, Morrisania, N. Y. SIMMS, LL.D., WILLIAM GILMORE, Charleston, S. C. The historian of South Carolina. SMITH, BUCKINGHAM, St. Augustine, Florida. STILES, Doctor HENRY R., Brooklyn, N. Y. Author of _History of Windsor_; _History of Brooklyn_; etc. STONE, Rev. E. M., Providence. Secretary of R. I. Historical Society. TAYLOR, ASHER, New York City. THORNTON, J. WINGATE, Boston. Author of _Ancient Pemaquid_, _Landing on Cape Ann_, etc. TIEDEMAN, H., Amsterdam, Holland. TRUMBULL, Hon. J. HAMMOND, Hartford, Conn. President of the Connecticut Historical Society. WALWORTH, MANSFIELD TRACY, Albany. WHITE, Rev. PLINY H., Coventry, Vermont. President of Vermont Historical Society. WHITMORE, WILLIAM H., Boston. WILLIAMSON, Hon. JOSEPH, Belfast, Maine. WILLIS, Hon. WILLIAM, Portland, Maine. Late President Maine Historical Society. WOOL, Major-general JOHN E., U.S.A. WYNNE, T. H., Baltimore. Editor of _The Westover Papers_, etc.