RACHEL DYER:
A NORTH AMERICAN STORY.
BY JOHN NEAL.
PORTLAND:
PUBLISHED BY SHIRLEY AND HYDE.
1828.
DISTRICT OF MAINE.... TO WIT:
DISTRICT CLERK’S OFFICE.
BE IT REMEMBERED, That on the eighth day of October, A.D. 1828, and in the fifty-third year of the Independence of the United States of America, Shirley & Hyde of said District, have deposited in this office, the title of a book, the right whereof they claim as proprietors, in the words following, to wit.
“Rachel Dyer: A North American Story. By John Neal. Portland.”
In conformity to the act of the Congress of the United States, entitled “An Act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned;” and also, to an act, entitled “An Act supplementary to an act, entitled An Art for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned; and for extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving and etching historical and other prints.”
J. MUSSEY, Clerk of the District of Maine.
A true copy as of record,
Attest, J. MUSSEY, Clerk D. C. Maine.
PREFACE.
I have long entertained a suspicion, all that has been said by the novel-writers and dramatists and poets of our age to the contrary notwithstanding, that personal beauty and intellectual beauty, or personal beauty and moral beauty, are not inseparably connected with, nor apportioned to each other. In Errata, a work of which as a work, I am heartily ashamed now, I labored long and earnestly to prove this. I made my dwarf a creature of great moral beauty and strength.
Godwin, the powerful energetic and philosophizing Godwin, saw a shadow of this truth; but he saw nothing more—the substance escaped him. He taught, and he has been followed by others, among whom are Brown, Scott and Byron, (I observe the chronological order) that a towering intellect may inhabit a miserable body; that heroes are not of necessity six feet high, nor of a godlike shape, and that we may be deceived, if we venture to judge of the inward by the outward man. But they stopped here. They did not perceive, or perceiving, would not acknowledge the whole truth; for if we consider a moment, we find that all their great men are scoundrels. Without one exception I believe, their heroes are hypocrites or misanthropes, banditti or worse; while their good men are altogether subordinate and pitiable destitute of energy and wholly without character.
Now believing as I do, in spite of such overwhelming authority, that a man may have a club-foot, or a hump-back, or even red hair and yet be a good man—peradventure a great man; that a dwarf with a distorted shape may be a giant in goodness of heart and greatness of temper; and that moral beauty may exist where it appears not to have been suspected by the chief critics of our age, and of past ages—namely, in a deformed body (like that of Æsop,) I have written this book.
Let me add however that although such was my principal, it was not my only object. I would call the attention of our novel-writers and our novel-readers to what is undoubtedly native and peculiar, in the early history of our Fathers; I would urge them to believe that though there is much to lament in that history, there is nothing to conceal; that if they went astray, as they most assuredly did in their judgments, they went astray conscientiously, with what they understood to be the law of God in their right hands. The “Salem Tragedie” is in proof—that is the ground-work of my story; and I pray the reader to have patience with the author, if he should find this tale rather more serious in parts, and rather more argumentative in parts, than stories, novels and romances generally are.
I do not pretend to say that the book I now offer to my countrymen, is altogether such a book as I would write now, if I had more leisure, nor altogether such a book as I hope to write before I die; but as I cannot afford to throw it entirely away, and as I believe it to be much better, because more evidently prepared for a healthy good purpose, than any other I have written, I have concluded to publish it—hoping it may be regarded by the wise and virtuous of our country as some sort of atonement for the folly and extravagance of my earlier writing.
The skeleton of this tale was originally prepared for Blackwood, as the first of a series of North-American Stories: He accepted it, paid for it, printed it, and sent me the proofs. A misunderstanding however occurred between us, about other matters, and I withdrew the story and repaid him for it. It was never published therefore; but was put aside by me, as the frame-work for a novel—which novel is now before the reader.
JOHN NEAL.
Portland, October 1, 1828.
P.S. After some consideration, I have concluded to publish a preface, originally intended for the North American Stories alluded to above. It was never published, nor has it ever been read by any body but myself. Among those who are interested for the encouragement of our native literature, there may be some who will not be sorry to see what my ideas were on the subject of novel-writing, as well as what they are. Changes have been foretold in my views—and I owe it to our people to acknowledge, that in a good degree, the prediction has been accomplished I do not feel now as I did, when I wrote Seventy-Six, Randolph, and the rest of the works published in America; nor even as I did, when I wrote those that were published over seas. The mere novel-reader had better skip the following pages and go directly to the story. The introductory chapter in all human probability will be too much for him.
J. N.
UNPUBLISHED PREFACE
TO THE NORTH-AMERICAN STORIES, ALLUDED TO IN PAGE V.
The author of this work is now under the necessity of bidding the novel-readers of the day, on both sides of the water, farewell, and in all probability, forever. By them it may be considered a trivial affair—a time for pleasantry, or peradventure for a formal expression of what are called good wishes. But by him, who does not feel like other men—or does not understand their language, when they talk in this way, it will ever be regarded as a very serious thing. He would neither conceal nor deny the truth—he would not so affront the feeling within him—and he says therefore without affectation or ceremony, that it goes to his heart even to bid the novel-readers of the age, the few that have read his novels, it were better to say—farewell.
These volumes are the last of a series which even from his youth up, he had been accustomed to meditate upon as a worthy and affectionate offering to his family and to those who have made many a long winter day in a dreary climate, very cheerful and pleasant to him—the daughters of a dear friend—of one who, if his eye should ever fall upon this page, will understand immediately more than a chapter could tell, of the deep wayward strange motives that have influenced the author to say thus much and no more, while recurring for the last time to the bright vision of his youth. And the little that he does say now, is not said for the world;—for what care they about the humble and innocent creatures, whose gentleness and sincerity about their own fire-side, were for a long time all that kept a man, who was weary and sick of the great world, from leaving it in despair? No, it is not said for them; but for any one of that large family who may happen to be alive now, and in the way of remembering “the stranger that was within their gates”—when to the world he may be as if he never had been. Let them not be amazed when they discover the truth; nor afraid nor ashamed to see that the man whom they knew only as the stranger from a far country, was also an author.
In other days, angels were entertained in the shape of travellers and way-faring men; but ye—had ye known every stranger that knocked at your door to be an angel, or a messenger of the Most High, could not have treated him more like an immortal creature than ye did that unknown man, who now bears witness to your simplicity and great goodness of heart. With you it was enough that a fellow-creature was unhappy—you strove to make him happy; and having done this, you sent him away, ignorant alike of his people, his country and his name.
*****
This work is the last of the sort I believe—the very last I shall ever write. Reader—stop!—lay down the book for a moment and answer me. Do you feel no emotion at the sight of that word? You are surprised at the question. Why should you feel any, you ask. Why should you?—let us reason together for a moment. Can it be that you are able to bear of the final consummation of a hope which had been the chief stay of a fellow-creature for many—many years?—Can it be that you feel no sort of emotion at hearing him say, Lo! I have finished the work—it is the last—no sensation of inquietude? Perhaps you now begin to see differently; perhaps you would now try to exculpate yourself. You are willing to admit now that the affair is one of a graver aspect than you first imagined. You are half ready to deny now that you ever considered it otherwise. But mark me—out of your own mouth you are condemned. Twice have I said already—three times have I said already, that this was the last work of the sort I should ever write, and you have read the declaration as you would, the passing motto of a title-page. You neither cared for it, nor thought of it; and had I not alarmed you by my abruptness, compelled you to stop and think, and awed you by steadfastly rebuking your inhumanity, you would not have known by to-morrow whether I had spoken of it as my last work or not. Consider what I say—is it not the truth?—can you deny it? And yet you—you are one of the multitude who dare to sit in judgment upon the doings of your fellow men. It is on what you and such as you say, that authors are to depend for that which is of more value to them than the breath of life—character. How dare you!—You read without reflection, and you hear without understanding. Yet upon the judgment of such as you—so made up, it is that the patient and the profound, the thoughtful and the gifted, are to rely for immortality.
To return to what I was about saying—the work now before you, reader, is the last of a series, meditated as I have already told you, from my youth. It was but a dream at first—a dream of my boyhood, indefinite, vague and shadowy; but as I grew up, it grew stronger and braver and more substantial. For years it did not deserve the name of a plan—it was merely a breathing after I hardly knew what, a hope that I should live to do something in a literary way worthy of my people—accompanied however with an inappeasable yearning for the time and opportunity to arrive. But so it was, that, notwithstanding all my anxiety and resolution, I could not bring myself to make the attempt—even the attempt—until it appeared no longer possible for me to do what for years I had been very anxious to do. The engagement was of too sacred a nature to be trifled with—perhaps the more sacred in my view for being made only with myself, and without a witness; for engagements having no other authority than our moral sense of duty to ourselves, would never be performed, after they grew irksome or heavy, unless we were scrupulous in proportion to the facility with which we might escape if we would.
This indeterminate, haunting desire to do what I had so engaged to do, at last however began to give way before the serious and necessary business of life, and the continually augmenting pressure of duties too solemn to be slighted for any—I had almost said for any earthly consideration. Yea more, to confess the whole truth, I had begun to regard the enterprise itself—so prone are we to self-deception, so ready at finding excuses where we have a duty to perform—as hardly worthy of much power, and as altogether beneath an exalted ambition. But here I was greatly mistaken; for I have an idea now, that a great novel—such a novel as might be made—if all the powers that could be employed upon it were found in one man, would be the greatest production of human genius. It is a law and a history of itself—to every people—and throughout all time—in literature and morals—in character and passion—yea—in what may be called the fire-side biography of nations. It would be, if rightly managed, a picture of the present for futurity—a picture of human nature, not only here but every where—a portrait of man—a history of the human heart—a book therefore, written not only in a universal, but in what may be considered as an everlasting language—the language of immortal, indistructable spirits. Such are the parables of Him who spoke that language best.
Again however, the subject was revived. Sleeping and waking, by night and by day, it was before me; and at last I began to perceive that if the attempt were ever to be made, it must be made by one desperate, convulsive, instantaneous effort. I determined to deliberate no longer—or rather to stand no longer, shivering like a coward, upon the brink of adventure, under pretence of deliberation; and therefore, having first carefully stopped my ears and shut my eyes, I threw myself headlong over the precipice. Behold the result! If I have not brought up the pearls, I can say at least that I have been to the bottom—and I might have added—of the human heart sometimes—but for the perverse and foolish insincerity of the world, which if I had so finished the sentence, would have set their faces forever against my book; although that same world, had I been wise enough—no, not wise enough but cunning enough, to hold my peace, might have been ready to acknowledge that I had been sometimes, even where I say—to the very bottom of the human heart.
I plunged. But when I did, it was rather to relieve my own soul from the intolerable weight of her own reproach, than with any hope of living to complete the design, except at a sacrifice next in degree to that of self-immolation. Would you know what more than any other thing—more than all other things determined me at last? I was an American. I had heard the insolent question of a Scotch Reviewer, repeated on every side of me by native Americans—“Who reads an American Book?” I could not bear this—I could neither eat nor sleep till my mind was made up. I reasoned with myself—I strove hard—but the spirit within me would not be rebuked. Shall I go forth said I, in the solitude of my own thought, and make war alone against the foe—for alone it must be made, or there will be no hope of success. There must be but one head, one heart in the plan—the secret must not even be guessed at by another—it must be single and simple, one that like the wedge in mechanics, or in the ancient military art, must have but one point, and that point must be of adamant. Being so it may be turned aside: A thousand more like itself, may be blunted or shivered; but if at last, any one of the whole should make any impression whatever upon the foe, or effect any entrance whatever into the sanctity and strength of his tremendous phalanx, then, from that moment, the day is our own. Our literature will begin to wake up, and our pride of country will wake up with it. Those who follow will have nothing to do but keep what the forlorn hope, who goes to irretrievable martyrdom if he fail, has gained.
Moreover—who was there to stand by the native American that should go out, haply with a sling and a stone, against a tower of strength and the everlasting entrenchments of prejudice? Could he hope to find so much as one of his countrymen, to go with him or even to bear his shield? Would the Reviewers of America befriend him? No—they have not courage enough to fight their own battles manfully.[1] No—they would rather flatter than strike. They negociate altogether too much—where blows are wanted, they give words. And the best of our literary champions, would they? No; they would only bewail his temerity, if he were the bold headlong creature he should be to accomplish the work; and pity his folly and presumption, if he were any thing else.
[1] Or had not before this was written. Look to the North-American Review before 1825, for proof.
After all however, why should they be reproached for this? They have gained their little reputation hardly. “It were too much to spend that little”—so grudgingly acquiesced in by their beloved countrymen—“rashly.” No wonder they fight shy. It is their duty—considering what they have at stake—their little all. There is Washington Irving now; he has obtained the reputation of being—what?—why at the best, of being only the American Addison, in the view of Englishmen. And is this a title to care much for? Would such a name, though Addison stood far higher in the opinion of the English themselves, than he now does, or ever again will, be enough to satisfy the ambition of a lofty minded, original thinker? Would such a man falter and reef his plumage midway up the altitude of his blinding and brave ascent, to be called the American Addison, or even what in my view were ten thousand times better, the American Goldsmith.[2] No—up to the very key stone of the broad blue firmament! he would say, or back to the vile earth again: ay, lower than the earth first! Understand me however. I do not say this lightly nor disparagingly. I love and admire Washington Irving. I wish him all the reputation he covets, and of the very kind he covets. Our paths never did, never will cross each other. And so with Mr. Cooper; and a multitude more, of whom we may rightfully be proud. They have gained just enough popular favor to make them afraid of hazarding one jot or tittle of it, by stepping aside into a new path. No one of these could avail me in my design. They would have everything to lose, and nothing to gain by embarking in it. While I—what had I to lose—nay what have I to lose? I am not now, I never have been, I never shall be an author by trade. The opinion of the public is not the breath of life to me; for if the truth must be told, I have to this hour very little respect for it—so long as it is indeed the opinion of the public—of the mere multitude, the careless, unthinking judgment of the mob, unregulated by the wise and thoughtful.
[2] I speak here of Goldsmith’s prose, not of his poetry. Heaven forbid!
To succeed as I hoped, I must put everything at hazard. It would not do for me to imitate anybody. Nor would it do for my country. Who would care for the American Addison where he could have the English by asking for it? Who would languish, a twelvemonth after they appeared, for Mr. Cooper’s imitations of Sir Walter Scott, or Charles Brockden Brown’s imitations of Godwin? Those, and those only, who after having seen the transfiguration of Raphael, (or that of Talma,) or Dominichino’s St. Jerome, would walk away to a village painting room, or a provincial theatre, to pick their teeth and play the critic over an imitation of the one or a copy of the other. At the best, all such things are but imitations. And what are imitations? Sheer mimicry—more or less exalted to be sure; but still mimicry—wherever the copies of life are copied and not life itself: a sort of high-handed, noon-day plagiarism—nothing more. People are never amazed, nor carried away, nor uplifted by imitations. They are pleased with the ingenuity of the artist—they are delighted with the closeness of the imitation—but that is all. The better the work is done, the worse they think of the workman. He who can paint a great picture, cannot copy—David Teniers to the contrary notwithstanding; for David never painted a great picture in his life, though he has painted small ones, not more than three feet square, which would sell for twenty-five thousand dollars to day.
Yes—to succeed, I must imitate nobody—I must resemble nobody; for with your critic, resemblance in the unknown to the known, is never anything but adroit imitation. To succeed therefore, I must be unlike all that have gone before me. That were no easy matter; nor would be it so difficult as men are apt to believe. Nor is it necessary that I should do better than all who have gone before me. I should be more likely to prosper, in the long run, by worse original productions—with a poor story told in poor language, (if it were original in spirit and character) than by a much better story told in much better language, if after the transports of the public were over, they should be able to trace a resemblance between it and Walter Scott, or Oliver Goldsmith, or Mr. Addison.
So far so good. There was, beyond a doubt, a fair chance in the great commonwealth of literature, even though I should not achieve a miracle, nor prove myself both wiser and better than all the authors who had gone before me. And moreover, might it not be possible—possible I say—for the mob are a jealous guardian of sepulchres and ashes, and high-sounding names, particularly where a name will save them the trouble of judging for themselves, or do their arguments for them in the shape of a perpetual demonstration, whatever may be the nature of the controversy in which they are involved—might it not be possible then, I say, that, as the whole body of mankind have been growing wiser and wiser, and better and better, since the day when these great writers flourished, who are now ruling “our spirits from their urns,” that authors may have improved with them?—that they alone of the whole human race, by some possibility, may not have remained altogether stationary age after age—while the least enquiring and the most indolent of human beings—the very multitude—have been steadily advancing both in knowledge and power? And if so, might it not be possible for some improvements to be made, some discoveries, even yet in style and composition, by lanching forth into space. True, we might not be certain of finding a new world, like Columbus, nor a new heaven, like Tycho Brahe; but we should probably encounter some phenomena in the great unvisited moral sky and ocean; we should at least find out, after a while—which would of itself be the next greatest consolation for our trouble and anxiety, after that of discovering a new world or a new system,—that there remained no new world nor system to be discovered; that they who should adventure after us, would have so much the less to do for all that we had done; that they must follow in our steps; that if our health and strength had been wasted in a prodigious dream, it would have the good effect of preventing any future waste of health and strength on the part of others in any similar enterprize.
Islands and planets may still be found, we should say, and they that find them, are welcome to them; but continents and systems cannot be beyond where we have been; and if there be any within it, why—they are neither continents nor systems.
But then, after all, there was one plain question to be asked, which no honest man would like to evade, however much a mere dreamer might wish to do so. It was this. After all my fine theory—what are my chances of success? And if successful, what have I to gain? I chose to answer the last question first. Gain!—of a truth, it were no easy matter to say. Nothing here, nothing now—certainly nothing in America, till my bones have been canonized; for my countrymen are a thrifty, calculating people—they give nothing for the reputation of a man, till they are sure of selling it for more than they give. Were they visited by saints and prophets instead of gifted men, they would never believe that they were either saints or prophets, till they had been starved to death—or lived by a miracle—by no visible means; or until their cast-off clothes, bones, hair and teeth, or the furniture of the houses wherein they were starved, or the trees under which they had been chilled to death, carved into snuff-boxes or walking-sticks, would sell for as much as that sympathy had cost them, or as much as it would come to, to build a monument over—I do not say over their unsheltered remains, for by that time there would be but little or no remains of them to be found, unmingled with the sky and water, earth and air about them, save perhaps in here and there a museum or college where they might always be bought up, however, immortality and all—for something more than compound interest added to the original cost—but to build a monument or a shed over the unappropriated stock, with certain privileges to the manufacturer of the walking-sticks and snuff-boxes aforesaid, so long as any of the material remained; taking care to provide with all due solemnity, perhaps by an act of the legislature, for securing the monopoly to the sovereign state itself.
Thus much perhaps I might hope for from my own people. But what from the British? They were magnanimous, or at least they would bear to be told so; and telling them so in a simple, off-hand, ingenuous way, with a great appearance of sincerity, and as if one had been carried away by a sudden impulse, to speak a forbidden truth, or surprised into a prohibited expression of feeling by some spectacle of generosity, in spite of his constitutional reserve and timidity and caution, would be likely to pay well. But I would do no such thing. I would flatter nobody—no people—no nation. I would be to nobody—neither to my own countrymen, nor to the British—unless I were better paid for it, than any of my countrymen were ever yet paid either at home or abroad.
No—I choose to see for myself, by putting the proof touch like a hot iron to their foreheads, whether the British are indeed a magnanimous people. But then, if I do all this, what are my chances of reward, even with the British themselves? That was a fearful question to be sure. The British are a nation of writers. Their novel-writers are as a cloud. True—true—but they still want something which they have not. They want a real American writer—one with courage enough to write in his native tongue. That they have not, even at this day. That they never had. Our best writers are English writers, not American writers. They are English in every thing they do, and in every thing they say, as authors—in the structure and moral of their stories, in their dialogue, speech and pronunciation, yea in the very characters they draw. Not so much as one true Yankee is to be found in any of our native books: hardly so much as one true Yankee phrase. Not so much as one true Indian, though you hardly take up a story on either side of the water now, without finding a red-man stowed away in it; and what sort of a red-man? Why one that uniformly talks the best English the author is capable of—more than half the time perhaps out-Ossianing Ossian.
I have the modesty to believe that in some things I am unlike all the other writers of my country—both living and dead; although there are not a few, I dare say who would be glad to hear of my bearing a great resemblance to the latter. For my own part I do not pretend to write English—that is, I do not pretend to write what the English themselves call English—I do not, and I hope to God—I say this reverently, although one of their Reviewers may be again puzzled to determine “whether I am swearing or praying” when I say so—that I never shall write what is now worshipped under the name of classical English. It is no natural language—it never was—it never will be spoken alive on this earth: and therefore, ought never to be written. We have dead languages enough now; but the deadest language I ever met with or heard of, was that in use among the writers of Queen Anne’s day.
At last I came to the conclusion—that the chances were at least a thousand to one against me. A thousand to one said I, to myself, that I perish outright in my headlong enterprise. But then, if I do not perish—if I triumph, what a triumph it will be! If I succeed, I shall be rewarded well—if the British are what they are believed to be—in fair proportion to the toil and peril I have encountered. At any rate, whether I fail or not, I shall be, and am willing to be, one of the first hundred to carry the war into the very camp, yea among the very household gods of the enemy. And if I die, I will die with my right arm consuming in the blaze of their altars—like Mutius Scævola.
But enough on this head. The plan took shape, and you have the commencement now before you, reader. I have had several objects in view at the same time, all subordinate however to that which I first mentioned, in the prosecution of my wayward enterprise. One was to show to my countrymen that there are abundant and hidden sources of fertility in their own beautiful brave earth, waiting only to be broken up; and barren places to all outward appearance, in the northern, as well as the southern Americas—yet teeming below with bright sail—where the plough-share that is driven through them with a strong arm, will come out laden with rich mineral and followed by running water: places where—if you but lay your ear to the scented ground, you may hear the perpetual gush of innumerable fountains pouring their subterranean melody night and day among the minerals and rocks, the iron and the gold: places where the way-faring man, the pilgrim or the wanderer through what he may deem the very deserts of literature, the barren-places of knowledge, will find the very roots of the withered and blasted shrubbery, which like the traveller in Peru, he may have accidentally uptorn in his weary and discouraging ascent, and the very bowels of the earth into which he has torn his way, heavy with a brightness that may be coined, like the soil about the favorite hiding places of the sunny-haired Apollo.
Another, was to teach my countrymen, that these very Englishmen, to whom as the barbarians of ancient story did by their gods when they would conciliate them, we are accustomed to offer up our own offspring, with our own hands, whenever we see the sky darkening over the water—the sky inhabited of them; ay, that these very Englishmen, to whom we are so in the habit of immolating all that is beautiful and grand among us—the first born of our youth—our creatures of immortality—our men of genius, while in the fever and flush of their vanity, innocence and passion—ere they have had time to put out their first plumage to the sky and the wind, all above and about them—that they, these very Englishmen, would not love us the less, nor revere us the less, if we loved and revered ourselves, and the issue of our blood and breath, and vitality and power, a little more. No—the men of England are men. They love manhood. They may smile at our national vanity, but their smile would be one of compassionate benevolence and encouragement, if we were wise enough to keep our young at home, till their first molting season were well over—and then, offer to pair them, even though there would be a little presumption in it, high up in the skies, and the strong wind—with their bravest and best: not, as we do now, upon the altars of the earth—upon the tables of our money-changers—half fledged and untrained—with their legs tied, and wings clipped; or, peradventure, with necks turned, and heads all skewered under their tails—a heap of carrion and garbage that the braver birds, even among their enemies, would disdain to stoop at. Such would be their behavior, if we dealt as we ought with our own; there would be no pity nor disdain with them. They would cheer us to the conflict—pour their red wine down our throats if we were beaten; and if their birds were beaten, they would bear it with temper—knowing that their reputation could well afford an occasional trumph, to the young of their favorite brood. The men of England are waiting to do us justice: but there is a certain formality to be gone through with, before they will do it. We must claim it. And why should we not? I do not mean that we should claim it upon our knees as the condemned of their courts of justice are compelled to claim that mercy, which the very law itself, has predetermined to grant to him—but will not, unless that idle and unworthy formality has been submitted to; no—I mean no such thing. We do not want mercy: and I would have my countrymen, when they are arraigned before any mere English tribunal—not acting under the law of nations in the world of literature, to go at once, with a calm front and untroubled eye, and plead to their jurisdiction, with a loud clear voice, and with their right hand upon the great book of English law, and set them at defiance. This, they have the right, and the power to do; and why should they not, when some of the inferior courts, of mere English criticism, have the audacity at every little interval, to call upon a sovereign people, to plead before them—without counsel—and be tried for some infringement of some paltry municipal provision of their statute book—some provincialism of language—or some heresy in politics—or some plagiarism of manner or style; and abide the penalty of forgery—or of ecclesiastical censure—or the reward of petit-larceny; re-transportation—or re-banishment to America.
It is high time now, that we should begin to do each other justice. Let us profit by their good qualities; and let them, by ours. And in time, we shall assuredly come to feel like brothers of the same parentage—an elder and a younger—different in temper—but alike in family resemblance—and alike proud of our great ancestry, the English giants of olden time. We shall revere our brother; and he will love his. But when shall this be?—not, I am sorely afraid—till we have called home all our children, from the four corners of the earth; from the east and from the west; from the north and from the south—and held a congress of the dead—of their fathers, and of our fathers—and published to the world, and to posterity—appealing again to Jehovah for the rectitude of our intentions—another Declaration of Independence, in the great Republic of Letters. And, yet this may soon be. The time is even now at hand. Our representatives are assembling: the dead Greek, and the Roman; the ancient English, and the fathers of literature, from all the buried nations of all the earth, and holding counsel together, and choosing their delegates. And the generation is already born, that shall yet hear the heavens ringing with acclamations to their decree—that another state has been added to the everlasting confederacy of literature!
And now the author repeats to the people of America, one and all, farewell; assuring them that there is very little probability of his ever appearing before them again as a novel-writer. His object has been, if not wholly, at least in a great degree accomplished. He has demonstrated that a bold and direct appeal to the manhood of any people will never be made in vain. Others may have been already, or may hereafter be incited to a more intrepid movement; and to a more confident reliance upon themselves and their resources, by what he has now accomplished—where it is most difficult to accomplish any thing—among his own countrymen: and most devoutly does he pray, that if they should, they may be more fortunate, and far more generously rewarded, than he has ever been; and if they should not, he advises them to go where he has been already—and trust to another people for that, which his own have not the heart to give him, however well he may deserve it. Abroad—if he do not get a chaplet of fire and greenness—he will, at least, get a cup of cold water,—and it may be, a tear or two of compassion, if nothing of encouragement—whatever he may do. At home—he may wear himself out—like one ashamed of what he is doing, in secrecy and darkness—exhaust his own heart of all its power and vitality, by pouring himself into the hearts of others—with a certainty that he will be called a madman, a beggar and a fool, for his pains—unless he persevere, in spite of a broken heart, and a broken constitution, till he shall have made his own countrymen ashamed of themselves, and afraid of him.
It is a sad thing to say good by’e, even for an author. If you mean what you say—it is a prayer as well as a blessing, an audible breathing of the heart. And if you do not—it is a wicked profanation. So far, reader, you have been the familiar companion of the author; and you may be one of those, who have journied with him before, for many a weary day, through much of his wandering and meditation:—that is, you may be one of those who, having been admitted before, to touch his heart with a naked hand—have felt in one pulsation—in one single hour’s fellowship with it, all that he had felt and thought for many a weary year. You have been with him to a more holy place than the fire-side; to him, more like the invisible creatures—for he hath never seen your face, and peradventure never may, though you have been looking into his very soul—that hover about the chamber of prayer—the solitude of the poet—or the haunted place under the shadow of great trees, where the wearied man throws himself down, to muse upon the face of his Creator, which he sees in the sky over him, or beneath the vast blue water before him. Is it wonderful therefore that there should be a little seriousness about his brow—although ye are invisible to him—when he is about to say farewell to you—farewell forever—without having once heard the tone of your voice—nor one of the many tears, that you may have dropped over him, when you thought yourself altogether alone:—
Nor can he look back, without some emotion, upon the labour that he has undergone, even within that flowery wilderness, where he hath been journeying with you, or lying and ruminating all alone, for so long a time; and out of which, he is now about to emerge—forever—with a strong tread, to the broad blue sky and the solid earth; nor without lamenting that he cannot go barefooted—and half-naked among men;—and that the colour and perfume—the dim enchantment, and the sweet, breathing, solemn loneliness of the wild-wood path, that he is about to abandon, for the broad dusty highway of the world, are so unpropitious to the substantial reputation of a man: nor, without grieving that the blossom-leaves, and the golden flower-dust, which now cover him, from head to foot, must be speedily brushed away;—and that the scent of the wilderness may not go with him—wherever he may go—wandering through the habitation of princes—the courts of the living God—or, the dwelling places of ambition—yea, even into the grave.
*****
I have but one other request to make. Let these words be engraven hereafter on my tomb-stone: “Who reads an American Book?”
RACHEL DYER.
The early history of New-England, or of Massachusetts Bay, rather; now one of the six New-England States of North America, and that on which the Plymouth settlers, or “Fathers” went ashore—the shipwrecked men of mighty age, abounds with proof that witchcraft was a familiar study, and that witches and wizards were believed in for a great while, among the most enlightened part of a large and well-educated religious population. The multitude of course had a like faith; for such authority governs the multitude every where, and at all times.
The belief was very general about a hundred years ago in every part of British America, was very common fifty years ago, when the revolutionary war broke out, and prevails now, even to this day in the wilder parts of the New-England territory, as well as in the new States which are springing up every where in the retreating shadow of the great western wilderness—a wood where half the men of Europe might easily hide from each other—and every where along the shores of the solitude, as if the new earth were full of the seed of empire, as if dominion were like fresh flowers or magnificent herbage, the spontaneous growth of a new soil wherever it is reached by the warm light or the cheerful rain of a new sky.
It is not confined however, nor was it a hundred and thirty five years ago, the particular period of our story, to the uneducated and barbarous, or to a portion of the white people of North-America, nor to the native Indians, a part of whose awful faith, a part of whose inherited religion it is to believe in a bad power, in witchcraft spells and sorcery. It may be met with wherever the Bible is much read in the spirit of the New-England Fathers. It was rooted in the very nature of those who were quite remarkable in the history of their age, for learning, for wisdom, for courage and for piety; of men who fled away from their fire-sides in Europe to the rocks of another world—where they buried themselves alive in search of truth.
We may smile now to hear witchcraft spoken seriously of; but we forget perhaps that a belief in it is like a belief in the after appearance of the dead among the blue waters, the green graves, the still starry atmosphere and the great shadowy woods of our earth; or like the beautiful deep instinct of our nature for worship,—older than the skies, it may be, universal as thought, and sure as the steadfast hope of immortality.
We may turn away with a sneer now from the devout believer in witches, wondering at the folly of them that have such faith, and quite persuading ourselves in our great wisdom, that all who have had it heretofore, however they may have been regarded by ages that have gone by, were not of a truth wise and great men; but we forget perhaps that we are told in the Book of Books, the Scriptures of Truth, about witches with power to raise the dead, about wizards and sorcerers that were able to strive with Jehovah’s anointed high priest before the misbelieving majesty of Egypt, with all his court and people gathered about his throne for proof, and of others who could look into futurity with power, interpret the vision of sleep, read the stars, bewitch and afflict whom they would, cast out devils and prophesy—false prophets were they called, not because that which they said was untrue, but because that which they said, whether true or untrue, was not from above—because the origin of their preternatural power was bad or untrue. And we forget moreover that laws were made about conjuration, spells and witchcraft by a body of British lawgivers, renowned for their sagacity, deep research, and grave thoughtful regard for truth, but a few years ago—the other day as it were—and that a multitude of superior men have recorded their belief in witchcraft—men of prodigious power—such men as the great and good Sir Matthew Hale, who gave judgment of death upon several witches and wizards, at a period when, if we may believe a tithe of what we hear every day of our lives, from the mouth of many a great lawyer, there was no lack of wit or wisdom, nor of knowledge or faithful enquiry; and such men too as the celebrated author of the Commentaries on the Laws of England, which are, “as every body knows, or should know, and a man must be exceedingly ignorant not to know” the pride of the British empire and a pillar of light for the sages of hereafter; and that within the last one hundred and fifty or two hundred years, a multitude of men and women have been tried and executed by authority of British law, in the heart of England, for having dealt in sorcery and witchcraft.
We may smile—we may sneer—but would such things have occurred in the British Parliament, or in the British courts of law, without some proof—whatever, it was—proof to the understandings of people, who in other matters are looked up to by the chief men of this age with absolute awe—that creatures endowed with strange, if not with preternatural power, did inhabit our earth and were able to work mischief according to the popular ideas of witchcraft and sorcery?
We know little or nothing of the facts upon which their belief was founded. All that we know is but hearsay, tradition or conjecture. They who believed were eye-witnesses and ear witnesses of what they believed; we who disbelieve are neither. They who believed knew all that we know of the matter and much more; we who disbelieve are not only ignorant of the facts, but we are living afar off, in a remote age. Nevertheless, they believed in witchcraft, and we regard all who speak of it seriously, with contempt. How dare we! What right have we to say that witches and witchcraft are no more, that sorcery is done with forever, that miracles are never to be wrought again, or that Prophecy shall never be heard again by the people of God, uplifting her voice like a thousand echoes from the everlasting solitudes of the sea, or like uninterrupted heavy thunder breaking over the terrible and haughty nations of our earth?
Why should we not think as well of him who believes too much, as of him who believes too little? Of him whose faith, whatever it may be, is too large, as of him whose faith, whatever it may be, is too small? Of the good with a credulous temper, as of the great with a suspicious temper? Of the pure in heart, of the youthful, of the untried in the ways of the world, who put much faith in whatever they are told, too much it may be, as of them who being thoroughly tried in the ways of the world put no faith in what they hear, and little in what they see? Of the humble in spirit who believe, though they do not perfectly understand, as of the haughty who will not believe because they do not perfectly understand? Of the poor child who thinks a juggler eats fire when he does not, as of the grown-up sage who thinks a juggler does not swallow a sword when he does? Of the believer in Crusoe, who sits poring over the story under a hedge, as of the unbeliever in Bruce who would not believe, so long as it was new, in the Tale of Abyssinia? Of those in short who are led astray by self-distrust, or innocence, or humility, as of them who are led astray by self-conceit, or corruption, or pride?
In other days, the Lion of the desert would not believe the horse when he came up out of the bleak north, and told a story of waters and seas that grew solid, quiet and smooth in the dead of winter. His majesty had never heard of such a thing before, and what his majesty had never heard of before could not be possible. The mighty lord of the Numedian desert could not believe—how could he?—in a cock-and-a-bull-story, about ice and snow; for to him they were both as a multitude of such things are to the philosophy of our age, out of the course of nature.
A solid sea and a fluid earth are alike to such as have no belief in what is new or contrary to that course of nature with which they are acquainted—whatever that may be. There is no such thing as proof to the over-wise or over mighty, save where by reason of what they already know, there is not much need of other proof.—They would not believe, though one should rise from the dead—they are too cautious by half; they are not satisfied with any sort of testimony; they dare not believe their own eyes—they do not indeed; for spectres when they appear to the eye of the philosopher now, are attributed altogether to a diseased organ.[3] They care not for the cloud of witnesses—they withdraw from the Bible, they scoff at history, and while they themselves reject every kind of proof, whatever it may be, such proof as they would be satisfied with in a case of murder, were they to hear it as a jury—such proof as they would give judgment of death upon, without fear, proof under oath by men of high character and severe probity, eye-witnesses and ear-witnesses of what they swear to—they ridicule those who undertake to weigh it with care, and pursue with scorn or pity those who shiver through all their arteries at a story of the preternatural.
[3] As by the printer of Berlin. See also Beasley’s Search after Truth.
As if it were a mark of deplorable fatuity for a babe to believe now as a multitude of wise and great and gifted men have heretofore believed in every age of the world! As if to think it possible for such to have been right in their belief, were too absurd for excuse now—such men as the holy Greek, the upright immovable Socrates, who persuaded himself that he was watched over by a sort of household spirit; such men too as the “bald” Cæsar, and the rock-hearted Brutus, both of whom spite of their imperial nature and high place among the warlike and mighty of their age, believed in that, and shook before that which whether deceitful or not, substance or shadow, the very cowards of our day are too brave to be scared with, too full of courage to put their trust in—afraid as they are of that, which the Roman pair would have met with a stern smile and a free step; such men too of a later age, as the profound, wise and pure Sir Matthew Hale, who put many to death for witchcraft—so clear was the proof, and so clear the nature of the crime—while the nature of larceny, the nature of common theft was forever a mystery to him, if we may believe what we hear out of his own mouth; such men too as the celebrated Judge Blackstone, who after a thorough sifting of the law, says—“It seems to be most eligible to conclude that in general there has been such a thing as witchcraft, though we cannot give credit to any particular modern instance of it;” such men too as Doctor Samuel Johnson, L. L. D. who saw through all the hypocricy and subterfuge of our day, when he said, speaking of a superstitious belief, that men who deny it by their words, confess it by their fears—nothing was ever so true! we who are most afraid, want courage to own it; such men too as the Lord Protector of England, while she was a commonwealth; and such as he, the Desolator—
“........... From whose reluctant hand,
The thunder-bolt was wrung”—
for they were both believers in what the very rabble of our earth deride now; such men, too, as the chief among poets—Byron—for he believed in the words of a poor old gypsey, and shook with fear, and faltered on the way to his bridal-chamber, when he thought of the prophecy she had uttered years and years before, in the morning of his haughty youth; such men too as the head lawgiver of our day, the High-Priest of Legislation, the great and good, the benevolent, the courageous Bentham, who to this hour is half afraid in the dark, and only able to satisfy himself about the folly of such fear, when his night-cap is off, by resorting with suitable gravity to his old refuge, the exhaustive mode of reasoning. If a ghost appear at all, argues he, it must appear either clothed or not clothed. But a ghost never appears not clothed, or naked; and if it appear clothed, we shall have not only the ghost of a human creature—which is bad enough; but the ghost of a particular kind of cloth of a particular fashion, the ghost of a pocket-handkerchief, or a night-cap—which is too bad.
Thus much for authority: and here, but for one little circumstance we should take up our narrative, and pursue it without turning to the right or the left, until we came to the sorrowful issue; but as we may have here and there a reader, in this unbelieving age, who has no regard for authority, nor much respect for the wisdom of our ancestors, what if we try to put the whole argument into a more conclusive shape? It may require but a few pages, and a few pages may go far to allay the wrath of modern philosophy. If we throw aside the privilege of authorship, and speak, not as a multitude but as one of the true faith, our argument would stand thus:
In a word, whatever the philosophy of our age may say, I cannot look upon witchcraft and sorcery as the unbeliever does. I know enough what the fashion is now; but I cannot believe, I do not believe that we know much more of the matter than our great progenitors did; or that we are much wiser than a multitude who have been for ages, and are now, renowned for their wisdom; or that we are much more pious than our noble fathers were, who died in their belief—died for their belief, I should say, and are a proverb to this hour on account of their piety. Nor can I persuade myself that such facts would be met with in grave undoubted history, if they were untrue, as are to be met with in every page of that which concerns the period of our story; facts which go to prove not only that a fixed belief in witchcraft prevailed throughout Europe as well as America, and among those with whom there was no lack of probity or good sense, or knowledge, it would appear; but that hundreds of poor creatures were tried for witchcraft under the authority of British law, and put to death, under the authority of British law, (and several after confession) for the practice of witchcraft and sorcery.
May it not be worth our while therefore, to speak seriously and reverently of our mighty forefathers? to bear in mind that the proof which they offer is affirmative and positive, while that which we rely upon, is negative—a matter of theory? to keep in view, moreover, that if a body of witnesses of equal worth were equally divided, one half saying that on such a day and hour, at such a place, when they were all together, such or such a thing, preternatural or not, mysterious or not, occurred; while the other half say positively, man for man, that so far as they heard or saw, or know or believe, no such thing did occur, at such a time or place, or at any other time or place, whatsoever—still, even here, though you may believe both parties, though you may give entire credit to the words of each, you may be justified, in a variety of cases, in acting upon the testimony of the former in preference to that of the latter. And why? Because the contradictory words of both may not be so contradictory as they appear—not so contradictory as to neutralize each other on every hypothesis; but may be reconcilable to the supposition that such or such a fact, however positively denied by one party, and however mysterious it may seem, really did occur: and this while they are not reconcilable to the supposition that such or such a fact really did not occur.—It being much more easy to overlook that which is, than to see that which is not; much more easy to not see a shadow that falls upon our pathway, than to see a shadow where indeed there is no shadow; much more easy to not hear a real voice, than to hear no voice.
If the multitude of trustworthy and superior men, therefore, who testify to the facts which are embodied in the following narrative, and which may appear incredible to the wise of our day, or out of the course of nature to the philosophy of our day, like ice or snow to the Lord of the Desert; if they were positively contradicted step by step, throughout, by another like multitude of trustworthy and superior men—still, though the two parties were alike numerous and alike worthy of credit, and although you might believe the story of each, and every word of it, and give no preference to either:—Still I say, you might be justified in supposing that after all, the facts which the former testify to really did occur. And why? Because though both speak true, that hypothesis may still be supported; while if both speak true, the contrary hypothesis cannot be supported. Facts may occur without being heard or seen by the whole of a party who are together at the time they occur: but how are they to be seen or heard, if they do not occur at all?
I have put a much stronger case than that on which the truth of the following story is made to depend; for no such contradiction occurs here, no such positive testimony, no such array of multitude against multitude of the same worth, or the same age, or the same people. On the affirmative side are a host here—a host of respectable witnesses, not a few of whom sealed their testimony with their blood; on the negative, hardly one either of a good or a bad character. What appears on the negative side is not by facts, but by theory. It is not positive but conjectural. The negative witnesses are of our age and of our people; the affirmative were of another age and of another people. The former too, it should be remarked were not only not present, but they were not born—they were not alive, when the matters which they deny the truth of, took place—if they ever took place at all. Now, if oaths are to be answered by conjecture, bloodshed by a sneer, absolute martyrdom by hypothesis, much grave testimony of the great and the pious, by a speculative argument, a brief syllogism, or a joke—of what use are the rules by which our trust in what we hear is regulated? our faith whatever it may be, and whether it concern this world or the next, and whether it be of the past, the present or the future? Are we to believe only so far as we may touch and see for ourselves? What is the groundwork of true knowledge? where the spirit of true philosophy? Whither should we go for proof; and of what avail is the truth which we are hoarding up, the truth which we are extracting year after year by laborious investigation, or fearful experiment? If we do not believe those who go up to the altar and make oath before the Everlasting God, not as men do now, one after another, but nation by nation, to that which is very new to us, or wonderful, why should posterity believe us when we testify to that which hereafter may be very new to them or very wonderful? Is every day to be like every other day, every age like every other age in the Diary of the Universe? Earthquake, war and revolution—the overthrow of States and of empires, are they to be repeated forever, lest men should not believe the stories that are told of them?
CHAPTER II.
But enough. It is quite impossible to doubt the sincerity of the Plymouth settlers, the Pilgrims, or Fathers of New-England, who escaping over sea laid the foundations of a mighty empire on the perpetual rocks of New-Plymouth, and along the desolate shores of a new world, or their belief in witchcraft and sorcery, whatever we may happen to believe now; for, at a period of sore and bitter perplexity for them and theirs, while they were yet wrestling for life, about four hundred of their hardy brave industrious population were either in prison for the alleged practice of witchcraft, or under accusation for matters which were looked upon as fatal evidence thereof. By referring to the sober and faithful records of that age, it will be found that in the course of about fifteen months, while the Fathers of New-England were beset on every side by the exasperated savages, or by the more exasperated French, who led the former through every part of the British-American territory, twenty-eight persons received sentence of death (of which number nineteen were executed) one died in jail, to whom our narrative relates, and one was deliberately crushed to death—according to British law, because forsooth, being a stout full-hearted man, he would not make a plea, nor open his mouth to the charge of sorcery, before the twelve, who up to that hour had permitted no one who did open his mouth to escape; that a few more succeeded in getting away before they were capitally charged; that one hundred and fifty were set free after the outcry was over; and that full two hundred more of the accused who were in great peril without knowing it, were never proceeded against, after the death of the individual whose character we have attempted a sketch of, in the following story.
Of these four hundred poor creatures, a large part of whom were people of good repute in the prime of life, above two-score made confession of their guilt—and this although about one half, being privately charged, had no opportunity for confession. The laws of nature, it would seem were set aside—if not by Jehovah, at least by the judges acting under the high and holy sanction of British law, in this day of sorrow; for at the trial of a woman who appears to have been celebrated for beauty and held in great fear because of her temper, both by the settlers and the savages, three of her children stood up, and children though they were, in the presence of their mother, avowed themselves to be witches, and gave a particular account of their voyages through the air and over sea, and of the cruel mischief they had perpetrated by her advice and direction; for she was endowed, say the records of the day, with great power and prerogative, and the Father of lies had promised her, at one of their church-yard gatherings that she should be “Queen of Hell.”
But before we go further into the particulars of our narrative which relates to a period when the frightful superstition we speak of was raging with irresistible power, a rapid review of so much of the earlier parts of the New-England history, as immediately concerns the breaking out, and the growth of a belief in witchcraft among the settlers of our savage country, may be of use to the reader, who, but for some such preparation, would never be able to credit a fiftieth part of what is undoubtedly true in the following story.
The pilgrims or “Fathers” of New-England, as they are now called by the writers of America, were but a ship-load of pious brave men, who while they were in search of a spot of earth where they might worship their God without fear, and build up a faith, if so it pleased him, without reproach, went ashore partly of their own accord, but more from necessity, in the terrible winter of 1620-21, upon a rock of Massachusetts-Bay, to which they gave the name of New-Plymouth, after that of the port of England from which they embarked.
They left England forever.... England their home and the home of their mighty fathers—turned their backs forever upon all that was dear to them in their beloved country, their friends, their houses, their tombs and their churches, their laws and their literature with all that other men cared for in that age; and this merely to avoid persecution for a religious faith; fled away as it were to the ends of the earth, over a sea the very name of which was doubtful, toward a shore that was like a shadow to the navigators of Europe, in search of a place where they might kneel down before their Father, and pray to him without molestation.
But, alas for their faith! No sooner had these pilgrims touched the shore of the new world, no sooner were they established in comparative power and security, than they fell upon the Quakers, who had followed them over the same sea, with the same hope; and scourged and banished them, and imprisoned them, and put some to death, for not believing as the new church taught in the new world. Such is the nature of man! The persecuted of to-day become the persecutors of to-morrow. They flourish, not because they are right, but because they are persecuted; and they persecute because they have the power, not because they whom they persecute are wrong.
The quakers died in their belief, and as the great always die—without a word or a tear; praying for the misguided people to their last breath, but prophecying heavy sorrow to them and to theirs—a sorrow without a name—a wo without a shape, to their whole race forever; with a mighty series of near and bitter affliction to the judges of the land, who while they were uttering the words of death to an aged woman of the Quakers, (Mary Dyer) were commanded with a loud voice to set their houses in order, to get ready the accounts of their stewardship, and to prepare with the priesthood of all the earth, to go before the Judge of the quick and the dead. It was the voice of Elizabeth Hutchinson, the dear and familiar friend of Mary Dyer. She spoke as one having authority from above, so that all who heard her were afraid—all! even the judges who were dealing out their judgment of death upon a fellow creature. And lo! after a few years, the daughter of the chief judge, before whom the prophecy had been uttered with such awful power, was tried for witchcraft and put to death for witchcraft on the very spot (so says the tradition of the people) where she stayed to scoff at Mary Dyer, who was on her way to the scaffold at the time, with her little withered hands locked upon her bosom ... her grey head lifted up ... not bowed in her unspeakable distress ... but lifted up, as if in prayer to something visible above, something whatever it was, the shadow of which fell upon the path and walked by the side of the aged martyr; something whatever it was, that moved like a spirit over the green smooth turf ... now at her elbow, now high up and afar off ... now in the blue, bright air; something whose holy guardianship was betrayed to the multitude by the devout slow motion of the eyes that were about to be extinguished forever.
Not long after the death of the daughter of the chief judge, another female was executed for witchcraft, and other stories of a similar nature were spread over the whole country, to prove that she too had gone out of her way to scoff at the poor quaker-woman. This occurred in 1655, only thirty-five years after the arrival of the Fathers in America. From this period, until 1691, there were but few trials for witchcraft among the Plymouth settlers, though the practice of the art was believed to be common throughout Europe as well as America, and a persuasion was rooted in the very hearts of the people, that the prophecy of the quakers and of Elizabeth Hutchinson would assuredly be accomplished.
It was accomplished. A shadow fell upon the earth at noon-day. The waters grew dark as midnight. Every thing alive was quiet with fear—the trees, the birds, the cattle, the very hearts of men who were gathered together in the houses of the Lord, every where, throughout all the land, for worship and for mutual succor. It was indeed a “Dark Day”—a day never to be thought of by those who were alive at the time, nor by their children’s children, without fear. The shadow of the grave was abroad, with a voice like the voice of the grave. Earthquake, fire, and a furious bright storm followed; inundation, war and strife in the church. Stars fell in a shower, heavy cannon were heard in the deep of the wilderness, low music from the sea—trumpets, horses, armies, mustering for battle in the deep sea. Apparitions were met in the high way, people whom nobody knew, men of a most unearthly stature; evil spirits going abroad on the sabbath day. The print of huge feet and hoof-marks were continually discovered in the snow, in the white sand of the sea-shore—nay, in the solid rocks and along the steep side of high mountains, where no mortal hoof could go; and sometimes they could be traced from roof to roof on the house-tops, though the buildings were very far apart; and the shape of Elizabeth Hutchinson herself, was said to have appeared to a traveller, on the very spot where she and her large family, after being driven forth out of New-England by the power of the new church, were put to death by the savages. He that saw the shape knew it, and was afraid for the people; for the look of the woman was a look of wrath, and her speech a speech of power.
Elizabeth Hutchinson was one of the most extraordinary women of the age—haughty, ambitious and crafty; and when it was told every where through the Plymouth colony that she had appeared to one of the church that expelled her, they knew that she had come back, to be seen of the judges and elders, according to her oath, and were siezed with a deep fear. They knew that she had been able to draw away from their peculiar mode of worship, a tithe of their whole number when she was alive, and a setter forth, if not of strange gods, at least of strange doctrines: and who should say that her mischievous power had not been fearfully augmented by death?
Meanwhile the men of New Plymouth, and of Massachusetts Bay, had multiplied so that all the neighborhood was tributary to them, and they were able to send forth large bodies of their young men to war, six hundred, seven hundred, and a thousand at a time, year after year, to fight with Philip of Mount Hope, a royal barbarian, who had wit enough to make war as the great men of Europe would make war now, and to persuade the white people that the prophecy of the Quakers related to him. It is true enough that he made war like a savage—and who would not, if he were surrounded as Philip of Mount Hope was, by a foe whose hatred was a part of his religion, a part of his very blood and being? if his territory were ploughed up or laid waste by a superior foe? if the very wilderness about him were fired while it was the burial-place and sanctuary of his mighty fathers? if their form of worship were scouted, and every grave and every secret place of prayer laid open to the light, with all their treasures and all their mysteries? every temple not made with hands, every church built by the Builder of the Skies, invaded by such a foe and polluted with the rites of a new faith, or levelled without mercy—every church and every temple, whether of rock or wood, whether perpetual from the first, or planted as the churches and temples of the solitude are, with leave to perpetuate themselves forever, to renew their strength and beauty every year and to multiply themselves on every side forever and ever, in spite of deluge and fire, storm, strife and earthquake; every church and every temple whether roofed as the skies are, and floored as the mountains are, with great clouds and with huge rocks, or covered in with tree-branches and paved with fresh turf, lighted with stars and purified with high winds? Would not the man of Europe make war now like a savage, and without mercy, if he were beset by a foe—for such was the foe that Philip of Mount Hope had to contend with in the fierce pale men of Massachusetts Bay,—a foe that no weapon of his could reach, a foe coming up out of the sea with irresistible power, and with a new shape? What if armies were to spring up out of the solid earth before the man of Europe—it would not be more wonderful to him than it was to the man of America to see armies issuing from the deep. What if they were to approach in balloons—or in great ships of the air, armed all over as the foe of the poor savage appeared to be, when the ships of the water drew near, charged with thunder and with lightning, and with four-footed creatures, and with sudden death? Would the man of Europe make war in such a case according to what are now called the usages of war?
The struggle with this haughty savage was regarded for a time as the wo without a shape, to which the prophecy referred, the sorrow without a name; for it occupied the whole force of the country, long and long after the bow of the red-chief was broken forever, his people scattered from the face of the earth, and his royalty reduced to a shadow—a shadow it is true, but still the shadow of a king; for up to the last hour of his life, when he died as no king had ever the courage to die, he showed no sign of terror, betrayed no wish to conciliate the foe, and smote all that were near without mercy, whenever they talked of submission; though he had no hope left, no path for escape, and every shot of the enemy was fatal to some one of the few that stood near him. It was a war, which but for the accidental discovery of a league embracing all the chief tribes of the north, before they were able to muster their strength for the meditated blow, would have swept away the white men, literally to the four winds of heaven, and left that earth free which they had set up their dominion over by falsehood and by treachery. By and by however, just when the issue of that war was near, and the fright of the pale men over, just when the hearts of the church had begun to heave with a new hope, and the prophecy of wrath and sorrow was no longer to be heard in the market-place, and by the way-side, or wherever the people were gathered together for business or worship, with a look of awe and a subdued breath—just when it came to be no longer thought of nor cared for by the judges and the elders, to whom week after week and year after year, it had been a familiar proverb of death (if bad news from the war had come over night, or news of trouble to the church, at home or abroad, in Europe or in America) they saw it suddenly and wholly accomplished before their faces—every word of it and every letter.
The shadow of the destroyer went by ... the type was no more. But lo! in the stead thereof, while every mother was happy, and every father in peace, and every child asleep in security, because the shadow and the type had gone by—lo! the Destroyer himself appeared! The shadow of death gave way for the visage of death—filling every heart with terror, and every house with lamentation. The people cried out for fear, as with one voice. They prayed as with one prayer. They had no hope; for they saw the children of those who had offered outrage to the poor quaker-woman gathered up, on every side, from the rest of the people, and after a few days and a brief inquiry, afflicted in their turn with reproach and outcry, with misery, torture and cruel death;—and when they saw this, they thought of the speech of Elizabeth Hutchinson before the priesthood of the land, the judges and the people, when they drove her out from among them, because of her new faith, and left her to perish for it in the depth of a howling wilderness; her, and her babes, and her beautiful daughter, and her two or three brave disciples, away from hope and afar from succor;—and as they thought of this, they were filled anew with unspeakable dread: for Mary Dyer and Elizabeth Hutchinson, were they not familiar, and very dear friends? were they not sisters in life, and sisters in death? gifted alike with a spirit of sure prophecy, though of a different faith? and martyrs alike to the church?
CHAPTER III.
“A strange infatuation had already begun to produce misery in private families, and disorder throughout the community,” says an old American writer, in allusion to the period of our story, 1691-2. “The imputation of witchcraft was accompanied with a prevalent belief of its reality; and the lives of a considerable number of innocent people were sacrificed to blind zeal and superstitious credulity. The mischief began at Naumkeag, (Salem) but it soon extended into various parts of the colony. The contagion however, was principally within the county of Essex. The æra of English learning, had scarcely commenced. Laws then existed in England against witches; and the authority of Sir Matthew Hale, who was revered in New England, not only for his knowledge in the law, but for his gravity and piety, had doubtless, great influence. The trial of the witches in Suffolk, in England, was published in 1684; and there was so exact a resemblance between the Old England dæmons and the New, that, it can hardly be doubted the arts of the designing were borrowed, and the credulity of the populace augmented from the parent country. * * * * *
“The gloomy state of New England probably facilitated the delusion, for ‘superstition flourishes in times of danger and dismay.’ The distress of the colonist, at this time, was great. The sea-coast was infested with privateers. The inland frontiers, east and west, were continually harassed by the French and Indians. The abortive expedition to Canada, had exposed the country to the resentment of France, the effects of which were perpetually dreaded. The old charter was gone, and what evils would be introduced by the new, which was very reluctantly received by many, time only could determine, but fear might forbode. * * How far these causes operating in a wilderness that was scarcely cleared up, might have contributed toward the infatuation, it is difficult to determine. It were injurious however, to consider New England as peculiar in this culpable credulity, with its sanguinary effects; for more persons have been put to death for witchcraft, in a single county in England, in a short space of time, than have suffered for the same cause, in all New-England, since its first settlement.”
Another American writer who was an eye witness of the facts which are embodied in the following narrative, says, “As to the method which the Salem justices do take in their examinations, it is truly this: A warrant being issued out to apprehend the persons that are charged and complained of by the afflicted children, (Abigail Paris and Bridget Pope) said persons are brought before the justices, the afflicted being present. The justices ask the apprehended why they afflict these poor children; to which the apprehended answer they do not afflict them. The justices order the apprehended to look upon the said children, which accordingly they do; and at the time of that look (I dare not say by that look as, the Salem gentlemen do) the afflicted are cast into a fit. The apprehended are then blinded and ordered to touch the afflicted; and at that touch, though not by the touch (as above) the afflicted do ordinarily come out of their fits. The afflicted persons then declare and affirm that the apprehended have afflicted them; upon which the apprehended persons though of never so good repute are forthwith committed to prison on suspicion of witchcraft.”
At this period, the chief magistrate of the New-Plymouth colony, a shrewd, artful, uneducated man, was not only at the head of those who believed in witchcraft as a familiar thing, but he was a head-ruler in the church. He was a native New-Englander of low birth—so say the records of our country,—where birth is now, and ever will be a matter of inquiry and solicitude, of shame perhaps to the few and of pride to the few, but of inquiry with all, in spite of our ostentatious republicanism. He was the head man over a body of men who may be regarded as the natural growth of a rugged soil in a time of religious warfare; with hearts and with heads like the resolute unforgiving Swiss-protestant of their age, or the Scotch-covenanter of an age that has hardly yet gone by. They were the Maccabees of the seventeenth century, and he was their political chief. They were the fathers of a new church in a new world, where no church had ever been heard of before; and he was ready to buckle a sword upon his thigh and go out against all the earth, at the command of that new church. They were ministers of the gospel, who ministered with fire and sword unto the savages whom they strove to convert; believers, who being persecuted in Europe, hunted out of Europe, and cast away upon the shores of America, set up a new war of persecution here—even here—in the untrodden—almost unapproachable domain of the Great Spirit of the Universe; pursued their brethren to death, scourged, fined, imprisoned, banished, mutilated, and where nothing else would do, hung up their bodies between heaven and earth for the good of their souls; drove mother after mother, and babe after babe, into the woods for not believing as their church taught; made war upon the lords of the soil, the savages who had been their stay and support while they were strangers, and sick and poor, and ready to perish, and whom it was therefore a duty for them—after they had recovered their strength—to make happy with the edge of the sword; such war as the savages would make upon the wild beast—way-laying them by night, and shooting them to death, as they lie asleep with their young, without so much as a declaration of war; destroying whithersoever they went, whatsoever they saw, in the shape of a dark man, as if they had authority from above to unpeople the woods of America; firing village after village, in the dead of the night—in the dead of winter too—and going to prayer in the deep snow, while their hands were smoking with slaughter, and their garments stiffening with blood—the blood, not of warriors overthrown by warriors in battle, but of the decrepit, or sick, or helpless; of the aged man, or the woman or the babe—set fire to in their sleep.—Such were the men of Massachusetts-Bay, at the period of our story, and he was their political chief.
He had acquired a large property and the title of Sir; a title which would go a great way at any time among the people of New-England, who whatever else they may be, and whatever they may pretend, are not now, and were not during the governship of Sir William Phips, at the period we refer to, and we dare say, never will be, without a regard for titles and birth, and ribbons, and stars, and garters, and much more too, than would ever be credited by those who only judge of them by what they are pleased to say of themselves in their fourth-of-July orations. His rank and wealth were acquired in rather a strange way—not by a course of rude mercantile adventure, such as the native Yankee is familiar with from his birth, through every unheard-of sea, and along every unheard-of shore; but by fishing up ingots of gold, and bars of silver, from the wreck of a Spanish hulk, which had been cast away on the coast of La Plata, years and years before, and which he had been told of by Mr. Paris, the minister of Salem,—a worthy, studious, wayward man, who had met with some account of the affair, while rummaging into a heap of old newspapers and ragged books that fell in his way.
Another would have paid no attention, it is probable, to the advice of the preacher—a man who had grown old in poring over books that nobody else in that country had ever met with or heard of; but the hardy New-Englander was too poor and too anxious for wealth to throw a chance away; and having satisfied himself in some degree about the truth of a newspaper-narrative which related to the ship, he set sail for the mother country, received the patronage of those, who if they were not noblemen, would be called partners in every such enterprise, with more than the privilege of partners—for they generally contrive to take the praise and the profit, while their plebeian associates have to put up with the loss and the reproach; found the wreck, and after a while succeeded in weighing a prodigious quantity of gold and silver. He was knighted in “consequence,” we are told; but in consequence of what, it would be no easy matter to say: and after so short an absence that he was hardly missed, returned to his native country with a new charter, great wealth, a great name, the title of Sir, and the authority of a chief magistrate.
Such are a few of the many facts which every body that knew him was acquainted with by report, and which nobody thought of disbelieving in British-America, till the fury about witches and witchcraft took possession of the people; after which they began to shake their heads at the story, and getting more and more courage as they grew more and more clear-sighted, they went on doubting first one part of the tale, and then another, till at last they did not scruple to say of their worthy Governor himself, and of the aged Mr. Paris, that one of the two—they did not like to say which—had got above their neighbors’ heads, after all, in a very strange way—a very strange way indeed—they did not like to say how; and that the sooner the other was done with old books, the better it would be for him. He had a Bible of his own to study, and what more would a preacher of the Gospel have?
Governor Phips and Matthew Paris were what are called neighbors in America. Their habitations were not more than five leagues apart. The Governor lived at Boston, the chief town of Massachusetts-Bay, and the preacher at Naumkeag, in a solitary log-house, completely surrounded by a thick wood, in which were many graves; and a rock held in great awe by the red men of the north, and avoided with special care by the whites, who had much reason to believe that in other days, it had been a rock of sacrifice, and that human creatures had been offered up there by the savages of old, either to Hobbamocko, their evil deity, or to Rawtantoweet, otherwise Ritchtau, their great Invisible Father. Matthew Paris and Sir William Phips had each a faith of his own therefore, in all that concerned witches and witchcraft. Both were believers—but their belief was modified, intimate as they were, by the circumstances and the society in which they lived. With the aged, poor and solitary man—a widower in his old age, it was a dreadful superstition, a faith mixed up with a mortal fear. With the younger and richer man, whose hope was not in the grave, and whose thoughts were away from the death-bed; who was never alone perhaps for an hour of the day; who lived in the very whirl of society, surrounded by the cheerful faces of them that he most loved on earth, it wore a less harrowing shape—it was merely a faith to talk of, and to teach on the Sabbath day, a curious faith suited to the bold inquisitive temper of the age. Both were believers, and fixed believers; and yet of the two, perhaps, the speculative man would have argued more powerfully—with fire and sword—as a teacher of what he believed.
About a twelvemonth before the enterprise to La Plata, whereby the “uneducated man of low birth” came to be a ruler and a chief in the land of his nativity, Matthew Paris the preacher, to whom he was indebted for a knowledge of the circumstances which led to the discovery, had lost a young wife—a poor girl who had been brought up in his family, and whom he married not because of her youth, but in spite of her youth; and every body knew as he stood by her grave, and saw the fresh earth heaped upon her, that he would never hold up his head again, his white venerable head, which met with a blessing wherever it appeared. From that day forth, he was a broken-hearted selfish man, weary of life, and sick with insupportable sorrow. He began to be afraid with a strange fear, to persuade himself that his Father above had cast him off, and that for the rest of his life he was to be a mark of the divine displeasure. He avoided all that knew him, and chiefly those he had been most intimate with while he was happy; for their looks and their speech, and every change of their breath reminded him of his poor Margaret, his meek beautiful wife. He could not bear the very song of the birds—nor the sight of the green trees; for she was buried in the summer-time, while the trees were in flower, and the birds singing in the branches that overshadowed her grave; and so he withdrew from the world and shut himself up in a dreary solitude, where neglecting his duty as a preacher of the gospel, he gave up his whole time to the education of his little daughter—the child of his old age, and the live miniature of its mother—who was like a child, from the day of her birth to the day of her death. His grief would have been despair, but for this one hope. It was the sorrow of old age—that insupportable sorrow—the sorrow of one who is ready to cry out with every sob, and at every breath, in the desolation of a widowed heart, whenever he goes to the fireside or the table, or sees the sun set, or the sky change with the lustre of a new day, or wakes in the dead of the night from a cheerful dream of his wife—his dear, dear wife, to the frightful truth; finding the heavy solitude of the grave about him, his bridal chamber dark with the atmosphere of death, his marriage bed—his home—his very heart, which had been occupied with a blessed and pure love a moment before, uninhabited forever.
His family consisted now of this one child, who was in her tenth year, a niece in her twelfth year, and two Indians who did the drudgery of the house, and were treated as members of the family, eating at the same table and of the same food as the preacher. One was a female who bore the name of Tituba; the other a praying warrior, who had become a by-word among the tribes of the north, and a show in the houses of the white men.
The preacher had always a belief in witchcraft, and so had every body else that he knew; but he had never been afraid of witches till after the death of his wife. He had been a little too ready perhaps to put faith in every tale that he heard about apparition or shadow, star-shooting or prophecy, unearthly musick, or spirits going abroad through the very streets of Salem village, and over the green fields, and along by the sea shore, the wilderness, the rock and the hill-top, and always at noon-day, and always without a shadow—shapes of death, who never spoke but with a voice like that of the wind afar off, nor moved without making the air cold about them; creatures from the deep sea, who are known to the pious and the gifted by their slow smooth motion over the turf, and by their quiet, grave, unchangeable eyes. But though he had been too ready to believe in such things, from his youth up, he had never been much afraid of them, till after he found himself widowed forever, as he drew near, arm in arm with an angel, to the very threshold of eternity; separated by death, in his old age, from a good and beautiful, and young wife, just when he had no other hope—no other joy—nothing but her and her sweet image, the babe, to care for underneath the sky. Are we to have no charity for such a man—weak though he appear—a man whose days were passed by the grave where his wife lay, and whose nights were passed literally in her death-bed; a man living away and apart from all that he knew, on the very outskirts of the solitude, among those who had no fear but of shadows and spirits, and witchcraft and witches? We should remember that his faith after all, was the faith, not so much of the man, as of the age he lived in, the race he came of, and the life that he led. Hereafter, when posterity shall be occupied with our doings, they may wonder at our faith—perhaps at our credulity, as we now wonder at his.
But the babe grew, and a new hope flowered in his heart, for she was the very image of her mother; and there was her little cousin too, Bridget Pope, a child of singular beauty and very tall of her age—how could he be unhappy, when he heard their sweet voices ringing together?
CHAPTER IV.
Bridget Pope was of a thoughtful serious turn—the little Abby the veriest romp that ever breathed. Bridget was the elder, by about a year and a half, but she looked five years older than Abby, and was in every way a remarkable child. Her beauty was like her stature, and both were above her age; and her aptitude for learning was the talk of all that knew her. She was a favorite every where and with every body—she had such a sweet way with her, and was so unlike the other children of her age—so that when she appeared to merit reproof, as who will not in the heyday of innocent youth, it was quite impossible to reprove her, except with a mild voice, or a kind look, or a very affectionate word or two. She would keep away from her slate and book for whole days together, and sit for half an hour at a time without moving her eyes off the page, or turning away her head from the little window of their school-house, (a log-hut plastered with blue clay in stripes and patches, and lighted with horn, oiled-paper and isinglass) which commanded a view of Naumkeag, or Salem village, with a part of the original woods of North America—huge trees that were found there on the first arrival of the white man, crowded together and covered with moss and dropping to pieces of old age; a meeting-house with a short wooden spire, and the figure of death on the top for a weather-cock, a multitude of cottages that appeared to be lost in the landscape, and a broad beautiful approach from the sea.
Speak softly to Bridget Pope at such a time, or look at her with a look of love, and her quiet eyes would fill, and her childish heart would run over—it would be impossible to say why. But if you spoke sharply to her, when her head was at the little window, and her thoughts were away, nobody knew where, the poor little thing would grow pale and serious, and look at you with such a look of sorrow—and then go away and do what she was bid with a gravity that would go to your heart. And it would require a whole day after such a rebuke to restore the dye of her sweet lips, or to persuade her that you were not half so angry as you might have appeared. At every sound of your voice, at every step that came near, she would catch her breath, and start and look up, as if she expected something dreadful to happen.
But as for Abigail Paris, the pretty little blue-eyed cousin of Bridget Pope, there was no dealing with her in that way. If you shook your finger at her, she would laugh in your face; and if you did it with a grave air, ten to one but she made you laugh too. If you scolded her, she would scold you in return but always in such a way that you could not possibly be angry with her; she would mimic your step with her little naked feet, or the toss of your head, or the very curb of your mouth perhaps, while you were trying to terrify her. The little wretch!—everybody was tired to death of her in half an hour, and yet everybody was glad to see her again. Such was Abigail Paris, before Bridget Pope came to live in the house with her, but in the course of about half a year after that, she was so altered that her very play-fellows twitted her with being “afeard o’ Bridgee Pope.” She began to be tidy in her dress, to comb her bright hair, to speak low, to keep her shoes on her feet, and her stockings from about her heels, and before a twelvemonth was over, she left off wading in the snow, and grew very fond of her book.
They were always together now, creeping about under the old beach-trees, or hunting for hazle nuts, or searching for sun-baked apples in the short thick grass, or feeding the fish in the smooth clear sea—Bridget poring over a story that she had picked up, nobody knows where, and Abigail, whatever the story might be, and although the water might stand in her eyes at the time, always ready for a roll in the wet grass, a dip in the salt wave, or a slide from the very top of the haymow. They rambled about in the great woods together on tip-toe, holding their breath and saying their prayers at every step; they lay down together and slept together on the very track of the wolf, or the she-bear; and if they heard a noise afar off, a howl or a war-whoop, they crept in among the flowers of the solitary spot and were safe, or hid themselves in the shadow of trees that were spread out over the whole sky, or of shrubbery that appeared to cover the whole earth—
Where the wild grape hangs dropping in the shade,
O’er unfledged minstrels that beneath are laid;
Where the scarlet barberry glittered among the sharp green leaves like threaded bunches of coral,—where at every step the more brilliant ivory-plumbs or clustered bunch-berries rattled among the withered herbage and rolled about their feet like a handful of beads,—where they delighted to go even while they were afraid to speak above a whisper, and kept fast hold of each other’s hands, every step of the way. Such was their love, such their companionship, such their behaviour while oppressed with fear. They were never apart for a day, till the time of our story; they were together all day and all night, going to sleep together and waking up together, feeding out of the same cup, and sleeping in the same bed, year after year.
But just when the preacher was ready to believe that his Father above had not altogether deserted him—for he was ready to cry out with joy whenever he looked upon these dear children; they were so good and so beautiful, and they loved each other so entirely; just when there appeared to be no evil in his path, no shadow in his way to the grave, a most alarming change took place in their behavior to each other. He tried to find out the cause, but they avoided all inquiry. He talked with them together, he talked with them apart, he tried every means in his power to know the truth, but all to no purpose. They were afraid of each other, and that was all that either would say. Both were full of mischief and appeared to be possessed with a new temper. They were noisy and spiteful toward each other, and toward every body else. They were continually hiding away from each other in holes and corners, and if they were pursued and plucked forth to the light, they were always found occupied with mischief above their age. Instead of playing together as they were wont, or sitting together in peace, they would creep away under the tables and chairs and beds, and behave as if they were hunted by something which nobody else could see; and they would lie there by the hour, snapping and snarling at each other, and at everybody that passed near. They had no longer the look of health, or of childhood, or of innocence. They were meagre and pale, and their eyes were fiery, and their fingers were skinny and sharp, and they delighted in devilish tricks and in outcries yet more devilish. They would play by themselves in the dead of the night, and shriek with a preternatural voice, and wake everybody with strange laughter—a sort of smothered giggle, which would appear to issue from the garret, or from the top of the house, while they were asleep, or pretending to be dead asleep in the great room below. They would break out all over in a fine sweat like the dew on a rose bush, and fall down as if they were struck to the heart with a knife, while they were on the way to meeting or school, or when the elders of the church were talking to them and every eye was fixed on their faces with pity or terror. They would grow pale as death in a moment, and seem to hear voices in the wind, and shake as with an ague while standing before a great fire, and look about on every side with such a piteous look for children, whenever it thundered or lightened, or whenever the sea roared, that the eyes of all who saw them would fill with tears. They would creep away backwards from each other on their hands and feet, or hide their faces in the lap of the female Indian Tituba, and if the preacher spoke to them, they would fall into a stupor, and awake with fearful cries and appear instantly covered all over with marks and spots like those which are left by pinching or bruising the flesh. They would be struck dumb while repeating the Lord’s prayer, and all their features would be distorted with a savage and hateful expression.
The heads of the church were now called together, and a day of general fasting, humiliation and prayer was appointed, and after that, the best medical men of the whole country were consulted, the pious and the gifted, the interpreters of dreams, the soothsayers, and the prophets of the Lord, every man of power, and every woman of power,—but no relief was had, no cure, no hope of cure.
Matthew Paris now began to be afraid of his own child. She was no longer the hope of his heart, the joy his old age, the live miniature of his buried wife. She was an evil thing—she was what he had no courage to think of, as he covered his old face and tore his white hair with a grief that would not be rebuked nor appeased. A new fear fell upon him, and his knees smote together, and the hair of his flesh rose, and he saw a spirit, and the spirit said to him look! And he looked, and lo! the truth appeared to him; for he saw neighbour after neighbour flying from his path, and all the heads of the church keeping aloof and whispering together in a low voice. Then knew he that Bridget Pope and Abigail Paris were bewitched.
A week passed over, a whole week, and every day and every hour they grew worse and worse, and the solitude in which he lived, more dreadful to him; but just when there appeared to be no hope left, no chance for escape, just when he and the few that were still courageous enough to speak with him, were beginning to despair, and to wish for the speedy death of the little sufferers, dear as they had been but a few weeks before to everybody that knew them, a discovery was made which threw the whole country into a new paroxysm of terror. The savages who had been for a great while in the habit of going to the house of the preacher to eat and sleep “without money and without price,” were now seen to keep aloof and to be more than usually grave; and yet when they were told of the children’s behaviour, they showed no sort of surprise, but shook their heads with a smile, and went their way, very much as if they were prepared for it.
When the preacher heard this, he called up the two Indians before him, and spoke to Tituba and prayed to know why her people who for years had been in the habit of lying before his hearth, and eating at his table, and coming in and going out of his habitation at all hours of the day and night, were no longer seen to approach his door.
“Tituppa no say—Tituppa no know,” she replied.
But as she replied, the preacher saw her make a sign to Peter Wawpee, her Sagamore, who began to show his teeth as if he knew something more than he chose to tell; but before the preacher could rebuke him as he deserved, or pursue the inquiry with Tituba, his daughter screamed out and fell upon her face and lay for a long while as if she were death-struck.
The preacher now bethought him of a new course, and after watching Tituba and Wawpee for several nights, became satisfied from what he saw, that she was a woman of diabolical power. A part of what he saw, he was afraid even to speak of; but he declared on oath before the judges, that he had seen sights, and heard noises that took away his bodily strength, his hearing and his breath for a time; that for nearly five weeks no one of her tribe, nor of Wawpee’s tribe had slept upon his hearth, or eaten of his bread, or lifted the latch of his door either by night or by day; that notwithstanding this, the very night before, as he went by the grave-yard where his poor wife lay, he heard the whispering of a multitude; that having no fear in such a place, he made a search; and that after a long while he found his help Tituba concealed in the bushes, that he said nothing but went his way, satisfied in his own soul however that the voices he heard were the voices of her tribe; and that after the moon rose he saw her employed with a great black Shadow on the rock of death, where as every body knew, sacrifices had been offered up in other days by another people to the god of the Pagan—the deity of the savage—employed in a way that made him shiver with fright where he stood; for between her and the huge black shadow there lay what he knew to be the dead body of his own dear child stretched out under the awful trees—her image rather, for she was at home and abed and asleep at the time. He would have spoken to it if he could—for he saw what he believed to be the shape of his wife; he would have screamed for help if he could, but he could not get his breath, and that was the last he knew; for when he came to himself he was lying in his own bed, and Tituba was sitting by his side with a cup of broth in her hand which he took care to throw away the moment her back was turned; for she was a creature of extraordinary art, and would have persuaded him that he had never been out of his bed for the whole day.
The judges immediately issued a warrant for Tituba and Wawpee, both of whom were hurried off to jail, and after a few days of proper inquiry, by torture, she was put upon trial for witchcraft. Being sorely pressed by the word of the preacher and by the testimony of Bridget Pope and Abigail Paris, who with two more afflicted children (for the mischief had spread now in every quarter) charged her and Sarah Good with appearing to them at all hours, and in all places, by day and by night, when they were awake and when they were asleep, and with tormenting their flesh. Tituba pleaded guilty and confessed before the judges and the people that the poor children spoke true, that she was indeed a witch, and that, with several of her sister witches of great power—among whom was mother Good, a miserable woman who lived a great way off, nobody knew where—and passed the greater part of her time by the sea-side, nobody knew how, she had been persuaded by the black man to pursue and worry and vex them. But the words were hardly out of her mouth before she herself was taken with a fit, which lasted so long that the judges believed her to be dead. She was lifted up and carried out into the air; but though she recovered her speech and her strength in a little time, she was altered in her looks from that day to the day of her death.
But as to mother Good, when they brought her up for trial, she would neither confess to the charge nor pray the court for mercy; but she stood up and mocked the jury and the people, and reproved the judges for hearkening to a body of accusers who were collected from all parts of the country, were of all ages, and swore to facts, which if they ever occurred at all, had occurred years and years before—facts which it would have been impossible for her to contradict, even though they had all been, as a large part of them obviously were, the growth of mistake or of superstitious dread. Her behavior was full of courage during the trial; and after the trial was over, and up to the last hour and last breath of her life, it was the same.
You are a liar! said she to a man who called her a witch to her teeth, and would have persuaded her to confess and live. You are a liar, as God is my judge, Mike! I am no more a witch than you are a wizard, and you know it Mike, though you be so glib at prayer; and if you take away my life, I tell you now that you and yours, and the people here, and the judges and the elders who are now thirsting for my blood shall rue the work of this day, forever and ever, in sackcloth and ashes; and I tell you further as Elizabeth Hutchinson told you, Ah ha! ... how do you like the sound of that name, Judges? You begin to be afraid I see; you are all quiet enough now!... But I say to you nevertheless, and I say to you here, even here, with my last breath, as Mary Dyer said to you with her last breath, and as poor Elizabeth Hutchinson said to you with hers, if you take away my life, the wrath of God shall pursue you!—you and yours!—forever and ever! Ye are wise men that I see, and mighty in faith, and ye should be able with such faith to make the deep boil like a pot, as they swore to you I did, to remove mountains, yea to shake the whole earth by a word—mighty in faith or how could you have swallowed the story of that knife-blade, or the story of the sheet? Very wise are you, and holy and fixed in your faith, or how could you have borne with the speech of that bold man, who appeared to you in court, and stood face to face before you, when you believed him to be afar off or lying at the bottom of the sea, and would not suffer you to take away the life even of such a poor unhappy old creature as I am, without reproving you as if he had authority from the Judge of judges and the King of kings to stay you in your faith!
Poor soul but I do pity thee! whispered a man who stood near with a coiled rope in one hand and a drawn sword in the other. It was the high-sheriff.
Her eyes filled and her voice faltered for the first time, when she heard this, and she put forth her hand with a smile, and assisted him in preparing the rope, saying as the cart stopped under the large beam, Poor soul indeed!—You are too soft-hearted for your office, and of the two, you are more to be pitied than the poor old woman you are a-going to choke.
Mighty in faith she continued, as the high-sheriff drew forth a watch and held it up for her to see that she had but a few moments to live. I address myself to you, ye Judges of Israel! and to you ye teachers of truth! Believe ye that a mortal woman of my age, with a rope about her neck, hath power to prophesy? If ye do, give ear to my speech and remember my words. For death, ye shall have death! For blood, ye shall have blood—blood on the earth! blood in the sky! blood in the waters! Ye shall drink blood and breathe blood, you and yours, for the work of this day!
Woman, woman! we pray thee to forbear! cried a voice from afar off.
I shall not forbear, Cotton Mather—it is your voice that I hear. But for you and such as you, miserable men that ye are, we should now be happy and at peace one with another. I shall not forbear—why should I? What have I done that I may not speak to the few that love me before we are parted by death?
Be prepared woman—if you will die, for the clock is about to strike said another voice.
Be prepared, sayest thou? William Phips, for I know the sound of thy voice too, thou hard-hearted miserable man! Be prepared, sayest thou? Behold——stretching forth her arms to the sky, and lifting herself up and speaking so that she was heard of the people on the house-tops afar off, Lo! I am ready! Be ye also ready, for now!—now!—even while I speak to you, he is preparing to reward both my accusers and my judges——.
He!—who!
Who, brother Joseph? said somebody in the crowd.
Why the Father of lies to be sure! what a question for you to ask, after having been of the jury!
Thou scoffer!—
Paul! Paul, beware!—
Hark—what’s that! Lord have mercy upon us!
The Lord have mercy upon us! cried the people, giving way on every side, without knowing why, and looking toward the high-sea, and holding their breath.
Pho, pho, said the scoffer, a grey-haired man who stood leaning over his crutch with eyes full of pity and sorrow, pho, pho, the noise that you hear is only the noise of the tide.
Nay, nay, Elder Smith, nay, nay, said an associate of the speaker. If it is only the noise of the tide, why have we not heard it before? and why do we not hear it now? just now, when the witch is about to be—
True ... true ... it may not be the Evil one, after all.
The Evil one, Joe Libby! No, no! it is God himself, our Father above! cried the witch, with a loud voice, waving her arms upward, and fixing her eye upon a group of two or three individuals who stood aloof, decorated with the badges of authority. Our Father above, I say! The Governor of governors, and the Judge of judges!... The cart began to move here.... He will reward you for the work of this day! He will refresh you with blood for it! and you too Jerry Pope, and you too Micajah Noyes, and you too Job Smith, and you ... and you ... and you....
Yea of a truth! cried a woman who stood apart from the people with her hands locked and her eyes fixed upon the chief-judge. It was Rachel Dyer, the grandchild of Mary Dyer. Yea of a truth! for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that spilleth his brother’s blood, or taketh his sister’s life by the law—and her speech was followed by a shriek from every hill-top and every house-top, and from every tree and every rock within sight of the place, and the cart moved away, and the body of the poor old creature swung to and fro in the convulsions of death.
CHAPTER V.
It is not a little remarkable that within a few days after the death of Sarah Good, a part of her pretended prophecy, that which was directed by her to the man who called her a witch at the place of death, was verified upon him, letter by letter, as it were.
He was way-laid by a party of the Mohawks, and carried off to answer to the tribe for having reported of them that they ate the flesh of their captives.—It would appear that he had lived among them in his youth, and that he was perfectly acquainted with their habits and opinions and with their mode of warfare; that he had been well treated by their chief, who let him go free at a time when he might lawfully have been put to death, according to the usages of the tribe, and that he could not possibly be mistaken about their eating the flesh of their prisoners. It would appear too, that he had been watched for, a long while before he was carried off; that his path had been beset hour after hour, and week after week, by three young warriors of the tribe, who might have shot him down, over and over again if they would, on the step of his own door, in the heart of a populous village, but they would not; for they had sworn to trap their prey alive, and to bring it off with the hide and the hair on; that after they had carried him to the territory of the Mohawks, they put him on trial for the charge face to face with a red accuser; that they found him guilty, and that, with a bitter laugh, they ordered him to eat of the flesh of a dead man that lay bleeding on the earth before him; that he looked up and saw the old chief who had been his father when he belonged to the tribe, and that hoping to appease the haughty savage, he took some of the detestable food into his mouth, and that instantly—instantly—before he could utter a prayer, they fell upon him with clubs and beat him to death.
Her prophecy therefore did appear to the people to be accomplished; for had she not said to this very man, that for the work of that day, “He should breathe blood and eat blood?”
Before a week had passed over, the story of death, and the speech of the prophetess took a new shape, and a variety of circumstances which occurred at the trial, and which were disregarded at the time, were now thought of by the very judges of the land with a secret awe; circumstances that are now to be detailed, for they were the true cause of what will not be forgotten for ages in that part of the world ... the catastrophe of our story.
At the trial of Sarah Good, while her face was turned away from her accuser, one of the afflicted gave a loud scream, and gasping for breath, fell upon the floor at the feet of the judges, and lay there as if she had been struck down by the weight of no mortal arm; and being lifted up, she swore that she had been stabbed with a knife by the shape of Sarah Good, while Sarah Good herself was pretending to be at prayer on the other side of the house; and for proof, she put her hand into her bosom and drew forth the blade of a penknife which was bloody, and which upon her oath, she declared to have been left sticking in her flesh a moment before, by the shape of Sarah Good.
The Judges were thunderstruck. The people were mute with terror, and the wretched woman herself covered her face with her hands; for she knew that if she looked upon the sufferers, they would shriek out, and foam at the mouth, and go into fits, and lie as if they were dead for a while; and that she would be commanded by the judges to go up to them and lay her hands upon their bodies without speaking or looking at them, and that on her doing so, they would be sure to revive, and start up, and speak of what they had seen or suffered while they were in what they called their agony.
The jury were already on their way out for consultation—they could not agree, it appeared; but when they saw this, they stopped at the door, and came back one by one to the jury box, and stood looking at each other, and at the judges, and at the poor old woman, as if they no longer thought it necessary to withdraw even for form sake, afraid as they all were of doing that, in a case of life and death, for which they might one day or other be sorry. A shadow was upon every visage of the twelve—the shadow of death; a look in the eyes of everybody there, a gravity and a paleness, which when the poor prisoner saw, she started up with a low cry—a cry of reproach—a cry of despair—and stood with her hands locked, and her mouth quivering, and her lips apart before God—lips white with fear, though not with the fear of death; and looked about her on every side, as if she had no longer a hope left—no hope from the jury, no hope from the multitude; nay as if while she had no longer a hope, she had no longer a desire to live.
There was a dead preternatural quiet in the house—not a breath could be heard now, not a breath nor a murmur; and lo! the aged foreman of the jury stood forth and laid his hands upon the Book of the Law, and lifted up his eyes and prepared to utter the verdict of death; but before he could speak so as to be heard, for his heart was over-charged with sorrow, a tumult arose afar off like the noise of the wind in the great woods of America; or a heavy swell on the sea-shore, when a surge after surge rolls booming in from the secret reservoir of waters, like the tide of a new deluge. Voices drew near with a portentous hoof-clatter from every side—east, west, north and south, so that the people were mute with awe; and as the dread clamor approached and grew louder and louder every moment, they crowded together and held their breath, they and the judges and the preachers and the magistrates, every man persuaded in his own soul that a rescue was nigh. At last a smothered war-whoop was heard, and then a sweet cheerful noise like the laugh of a young child high up in the air—and then a few words in the accent of authority, and a bustle outside of the door, which gave way as if it were spurned with a powerful foot; and a stranger appeared in the shadow of the huge trees that over-hung the door-way like a summer cloud—a low, square-built swarthy man with a heavy tread, and a bright fierce look, tearing his way through the crowd like a giant of old, and leading a beautiful boy by the hand.
What, ho! cried he to the chief judge, walking up to him, and standing before him, and speaking to him with a loud clear voice. What ho! captain Robert Sewall! why do ye this thing? What ho, there! addressing himself to the foreman of the jury—why speed ye so to the work of death? and you, master Bailey! and you governor Phips! and you doctor Mather, what business have ye here? And you ye judges, who are about to become the judges of life and death, how dare ye! Who gave you power to measure and weigh such mystery? Are ye gifted men—all of you—every man of you—specially gifted from above? Are you Thomas Fisk—with your white hair blowing about your agitated mouth and your dim eyes, are you able to see your way clear, that you have the courage to pronounce a verdict of death on your aged sister who stands there! And you Josh Carter, senior! and you major Zach Trip! and you Job Saltonstall! Who are ye and what are ye, men of war, that ye are able to see spirits, or that ye should become what ye are—the judges of our afflicted people! And who are we, and what were our fathers, I beseech you, that we should be base enough to abide upon earth but by your leave!
The judges looked at each other in consternation.
Who is it! ... who is it! cried the people as they rushed forward and gathered about him and tried to get a sight of his face. Who can it be!
Burroughs—Bur—Bur—Burroughs, I do believe! whispered a man who stood at his elbow, but he spoke as if he did not feel very sure of what he said.
Not George Burroughs, hey?
I’d take my oath of it neighbour Joe, my Bible-oath of it, leaning forward as far as he could reach with safety, and shading his eyes with his large bony hand—
Well, I do say! whispered another.
I see the scar!—as I live, I do! cried another, peering over the heads of the multitude, as they rocked to the heavy pressure of the intruder.
But how altered he is! ... and how old he looks!...—and shorter than ever! muttered several more.
Silence there! cried the chief judge—a militia-captain, it is to be observed, and of course not altogether so lawyer-like as a judge of our day would be.
Silence there! echoed the High Sheriff.
Never see nobody so altered afore, continued one of the crowd, with his eye fixed on the judge—I will say that much, afore I stop, Mr. Sheriff Berry, an’ (dropping his voice) if you don’t like it, you may lump it ... who cares for you?
Well—an’ who cares for you, if you come to that.
Officer of the court, how now! cried the chief judge in a very loud sharp voice.
Here I be mister judge—I ain’t deef.
Take that man away.
I say ... you! cried the High-Sheriff, getting up and fetching the man a rap over the head with his white-oak staff ... do you hear that?
Hear what?
What Mr. judge Sewall says.
I don’t care for Mr. judge Sewall, nor you nyther.
Away with him Sir! out with him! are we to suffer this outrage on the dignity of the court ... in the House of the Lord—away with him, Sir.
Here’s the devil to pay and no pitch hot—whispered a sailor-looking fellow, in a red baize shirt.
An’ there’s thirteen-pence for you to pay, Mr. Outlandishman, said a little neighbour, whose duty it was to watch for offenders in a small way, and fine them for swearing, drinking, or kissing their wives on the sabbath day.
What for?
Why, for that air oath o’yourn.
What oath?
Why, you said here’s the devil to pay!
Ha—ha—ha—and there’s thirteen-pence for you to pay.
You be darned!
An’ there’s thirteen-pence more for you, my lad—ha—ha—ha—
The officer now drew near the individual he was ordered to remove; but he did so as if a little afraid of his man—who stood up face to face with the judge, and planted his foot as if he knew of no power on earth able to move him, declaring he would’nt budge a peg, now they’d come to that; for the house they were in had been paid for out of the people’s money, and he’d as much right there as they had; but havin’ said what he had to say on the subject, and bein’ pooty considr’ble easy on that score now, if they’d mind their business he’d mind his; and if they’d behave, he would.
Very well, said the chief judge, who knew the man to be a soldier of tried bravery. Very well! you may stay where you are; I thought we should bring you to your senses, neighbour Joe.
Here the stranger broke away from the crowd and leaped upon the platform, and setting his teeth and smiting the floor with a heavy iron-shod staff, he asked the judges why they did not enforce the order? why with courage to take away life, they had no courage to defend their authority. How dare ye forgive this man! said he; how dare you bandy words with such a fellow! What if you have been to the war with him? Have ye not become the judges of the land? With hardihood enough to undertake the awful representation of majesty, have ye not enough to secure that majesty from outrage?
We know our own duty sir.
No such thing sir! you do not—if you do, it shall be the worse for you. You are afraid of that man—
Afraid sir!—Who are you!
Yes—you are afraid of that man. If you are not, why allow him to disturb the gravity of such an hour as this? Know your own power—Bid the High-sheriff take him into custody.
A laugh here from the sturdy yeoman, who having paid his quota for building the house, and fought his share of the fight with the Indians, felt as free as the best of them.
Speak but the word, Sirs, and I will do what I see your officer hath not valor enough to do. Speak but the word, Sirs! and I that know your power, will obey it, (uplifting the staff as he spoke, while the fire flashed from his eyes, and the crowd gave way on every side as if it were the tomahawk or the bow of a savage)—speak but the word I say! and I will strike him to the earth!
George Burroughs—I pray thee! said a female, who sat in a dark part of the house with her head so muffled up that nobody could see her face—I pray thee, George! do not strike thy brother in wrath.
Speak but the word I say, and lo! I will stretch him at your feet, if he refuse to obey me, whatever may be the peril to me or mine.
I should like to see you do it, said the man. I care as little for you, my boy,—throwing off his outer-garb as he spoke, and preparing for a trial of strength on the spot—as little for you, George Burroughs, if that is your name, as I do for your master.
Will you not speak! You see how afraid of him they all are, judges; you know how long he has braved your authority—being a soldier forsooth. Speak, if ye are wise; for if ye do not—
George! George!... No, no, George! said somebody at his elbow, with a timid voice, that appeared to belong to a child.
The uplifted staff dropped from his hand.
CHAPTER VI.
Here the venerable Increase Mather stood up, and after a short speech to the people and a few words to the court, he begged to know if the individual he saw before him was indeed the George Burroughs who had formerly been a servant of God.
Formerly, sir! I am so now, I hope.
The other sat down, with a look of inquietude.
You appear to be much perplexed about me. You appear even to doubt the truth of what I say. Surely ... surely ... there are some here that know me. I know you, Doctor Mather, and you, Sir William Phips, and you ... and you ... and you; addressing himself to many that stood near—it is but the other day that we were associated together; and some of us in the church, and others in the ministry; it is but the other day that—
Here the Judges began to whisper together.
—That you knew me as well as I knew you. Can I be so changed in a few short years? They have been years of sorrow to be sure, of uninterrupted sorrow, of trial and suffering, warfare and wo; but I did not suppose they had so changed me, as to make it over-hard for my very brothers in the church to know me—
It is Burroughs, I do believe, said another of the judges.—But who is that boy with you, and by what authority are you abroad again, or alive, I might say, if you are the George Burroughs that we knew?
By what authority, Judges of Israel! By authority of the Strong Man who broke loose when the spirit of the Lord was upon him! By authority of one that hath plucked me up out of the sea, by the hair of my head, breathed into my nostrils the breath of new life, and endowed me with great power—
The people drew back.
You have betrayed me; I will be a hostage for you no longer.
Betrayed you!
Yes! and ye would have betrayed me to death, if I had not been prepared for your treachery—
The man is mad, brother Sewall.
You have broken the treaty I stood pledged for; you have not been at peace for a day. You do not keep your faith. We do keep ours. You are churchmen ... we are savages; we I say, for you made me ashamed years and years ago of my relationship to the white man; years and years ago! and you are now in a fair way to make me the mortal and perpetual foe of the white man. The brave Iroquois are now ready for battle with you. War they find to be better than peace with such as you—
Who is that boy?
Ask him. Behold his beauty. Set him face to face, if you dare, with the girl that spoke to the knife just now.
And wherefore? said one of the jury.
Wherefore, Jacob Elliot—wherefore! Stay you in that box, and watch the boy, and hear what he has to say, and you shall be satisfied of the wherefore.
Be quick Sir. We have no time to lose—
No time to lose—How dare ye! Is there indeed such power with you; such mighty power ... and you not afraid in the exercise of it! No time to lose! Hereafter, when you are upon your death-bed, when every moment of your life is numbered as every moment of her life is now ... the poor creature that stands there, what will you say if the words of that very speech ring in your ears? Believe me—there is no such hurry. It will be time enough to-morrow, judges, a week hence or a whole year to shed the blood of a miserable woman for witchcraft. For witchcraft! alas for the credulity of man! alas for the very nature of man!
Master Burroughs! murmured a compassionate-looking old man, reaching over to lay his hand on his arm, as if to stop him, and shaking his head as he spoke.
Oh but I do pity you; sages though you are—continued Burroughs, without regarding the interposition.—For witchcraft! I wonder how you are able to keep your countenances! Do you not perceive that mother Good, as they call her, cannot be a witch?
How so? asked the judge.
Would she abide your search, your trial, your judgment, if she had power to escape?
Assuredly not brother, answered a man, who rose up as he spoke as if ready to dispute before the people, if permitted by the judges ... assuredly not, brother, if she had power to escape. We agree with you there. But we know that a period must arrive when the power that is paid for with the soul, the power of witchcraft and sorcery shall be withdrawn. We read of this and we believe it; and I might say that we see the proof now before us—
Brother, I marvel at you—
—If the woman be unexpectedly deserted by the Father of lies, and if we pursue our advantage now, we may be able both to succeed with her and overthrow him, and thereby (lowering his voice and stooping toward Burroughs) and thereby deter a multitude more from entering into the league of death.
Speak low ... lower—much lower, deacon Darby, or we shall be no match for the Father of lies: If he should happen to overhear you, the game is up, said another.
For shame, Elder Smith—
For shame! cried Burroughs. Why rebuke his levity, when if we are to put faith in what you say, ye are preparing to over-reach the Evil One himself? You must play a sure game, (for it is a game) if you hope to convict him of treachery in a case, where according to what you believe, his character is at stake.
Brother Burroughs!
Brother Willard!
Forbear, I beseech you.
I shall not forbear. If the woman is a witch, how do you hope to surprise her? ... to entrap her? ... to convict her? And if she is not a witch, how can she hope to go free? None but a witch could escape your toils.
Ah Sir.... Sir! O, Mr. Burroughs! cried the poor woman. There you have spoken the truth sir; there you have said just what I wanted to say. I knew it.... I felt it.... I knew that if I was guilty it would be better for me, than to be what you know me to be, and what your dead wife knew me to be, and both of your dead wives, for I knew them both—a broken-hearted poor old woman. God forever bless you Sir! whatever may become of me—however this may end, God forever bless you, Sir!
Be of good faith Sarah. He whom you serve will be nigh to you and deliver you.
Oh Sir—Sir—Do not talk so. They misunderstand you—they are whispering together—it will be the death of me; and hereafter, it may perhaps be a trouble to you. Speak out, I beseech you! Say to them whom it is that you mean, whom it is that I serve, and who it is that will be nigh to me and deliver me.
Who it is, poor heart! why whom should it be but our Father above! our Lord and our God, Sarah? Have thou courage, and be of good cheer, and put all thy trust in him, for he hath power to deliver thee.
I have—I do—I am no longer afraid of death sir. If they put me to death now—I do not wish to live—I am tired and sick of life, and I have been so ever since dear boy and his poor father—I told them how it would be if they went away when the moon was at the full—they were shipwrecked on the shore just underneath the window of my chamber—if they put me to death now, I shall die satisfied, for I shall not go to my grave now, as I thought I should before you came, without a word or a look of pity, nor any thing to make me comfortable.
Judges—may the boy speak?
Speak? speak? to be sure he may, muttered old Mr. Wait Winthrop, addressing himself to a preacher who sat near with a large Bible outspread upon his knees. What say you? what say you Brother Willard, what says the Book?—no harm there, I hope; what can he have to say though, (wiping his eyes) what can such a lad have to say? What say you major Gidney; what say you—(half sobbing) dreadful affair this, dreadful affair; what can he possibly have to say?
Not much, I am afraid, replied Burroughs, not very much; but enough I hope and believe, to shake your trust in the chief accuser. Robert Eveleth—here—this way—shall the boy be sworn, Sir?
Sworn—sworn?—to be sure—why not? very odd though—very—very—swear the boy—very odd, I confess—never saw a likelier boy of his age—how old is he?
Thirteen Sir—
Very—very—of his height, I should say—what can he know of the matter though? what can such a boy know of—of—however—we shall see—is the boy sworn?—there, there—
The boy stepped forth as the kind-hearted old man—too kind-hearted for a judge—concluded his perplexing soliloquy, one part of which was given out with a very decided air, while another was uttered with a look of pitiable indecision—stepped forth and lifted up his right hand according to the law of that people, with his large grey eyes lighted up and his fine yellow hair blowing about his head like a glory, and swore by the Everlasting God, the Searcher of Hearts, to speak the truth.
Every eye was riveted upon him, for he stood high upon a sort of stage, in full view of everybody, and face to face to all who had sworn to the spectre-knife, and his beauty was terrible.
Stand back, stand back ... what does that child do there? said another of the judges, pointing to a poor little creature with a pale anxious face and very black hair, who had crept close up to the side of Robert Eveleth, and sat there with her eyes lifted to his, and her sweet lips apart, as if she were holding her breath.
Why, what are you afeard of now, Bridgee Pope? said another voice. Get away from the boy’s feet, will you ... why don’t you move? ... do you hear me?
No ... I do not, she replied.
You do not! what did you answer me for, if you didn’t hear me?
Why ... why ... don’t you see the poor little thing’s bewitched? whispered a bystander.
Very true ... very true ... let her be, therefore, let her stay where she is.
Poor babe! she don’t hear a word you say.
O, but she dooze, though, said the boy, stooping down and smoothing her thick hair with both hands; I know her of old, I know her better than you do; she hears every word you say ... don’t you be afeard, Bridgee Pope; I’m not a goin’ to be afeard of the Old Boy himself....
Why Robert Eveleth! was the reply.
Well, Robert Eveleth, what have you to say? asked the chief-judge.
The boy stood up in reply, and threw back his head with a brave air, and set his foot, and fixed his eye on the judge, and related what he knew of the knife. He had broken it a few days before, he said, while he and the witness were playing together; he threw away a part of the blade, which he saw her pick up, and when he asked her what she wanted of it, she wouldn’t say ... but he knew her well, and being jest outside o’ the door when he heard her screech, and saw her pull a piece of the broken blade out of her flesh and hold it up to the jury, and say how the shape of old mother Good, who was over tother side o’ the house at the time, had stabbed her with it, he guessed how the judge would like to see the tother part o’ the knife, and hear what he had to say for himself, but he couldn’t get near enough to speak to nobody, and so he thought he’d run off to the school-house, where he had left the handle o’ the knife, an’ try to get a mouthful o’ fresh air; and so ... and so ... arter he’d got the handle, sure enough, who should he see but that are man there (pointing to Burroughs) stavin’ away on a great black horse with a club—that very club he had now.—“Whereupon,” added the boy, “here’s tother part o’ the knife, judge—I say ... you ... Mr. judge ... here’s tother part o’ the knife ... an’ so he stopped me an’ axed me where the plague I was runnin to; an’ so I up an’ tells him all I know about the knife, an’ so, an’ so, an’ so, that air feller, what dooze he do, but he jounces me up on that air plaguy crupper and fetches me back here full split, you see, and rides over everything, and makes everybody get out o’ the way, an’ will make me tell the story whether or no ... and as for the knife now, if you put them are two pieces together, you’ll see how they match.... O, you needn’t be makin’ mouths at me, Anne Putnam! nor you nyther, Marey Lewis! you are no great shakes, nyther on you, and I ain’t afeard o’ nyther on you, though the grown people be; you wont make me out a witch in a hurry, I guess.
Boy ... boy ... how came you by that knife?
How came I by that knife? Ax Bridgy Pope; she knows the knife well enough, too—I guess—don’t you, Bridgy?
I guess I do, Robert Eveleth, whispered the child, the tears running down her cheeks, and every breath a sob.
You’ve seen it afore, may be?
That I have, Robert Eveleth; but I never expected to see ... to see ... to see it again ... alive ... nor you neither.
And why not, pray? said one of the judges.
Why not, Mr. Major! why, ye see ’tis a bit of a keep-sake she gin me, jest afore we started off on that are vyage arter the goold.
The voyage when they were all cast away, sir ... after they’d fished up the gold, sir....
Ah, but the goold was safe then, Bridgy—
But I knew how ’twould be Sir, said the poor girl turning to the judge with a convulsive sob, and pushing away the hair from her face and trying to get up, I never expected to see Robert Eveleth again Sir—I said so too—nor the knife either—I said so before they went away——.
So she did Mr. Judge, that’s a fact; she told me so down by the beach there, just by that big tree that grows over the top o’ the new school-house there—You know the one I mean—that one what hangs over the edge o’ the hill just as if ’twas a-goin’ to fall into the water—she heard poor mother Good say as much when her Billy would go to sea whether or no, at the full o’ the moon——.
Ah!
That she did, long afore we got the ship off.
Possible!
Ay, to be sure an’ why not?—She had a bit of a dream ye see—such a dream too! such a beautiful dream you never heard—about the lumps of goold, and the joes, and the jewels, and the women o’ the sea, and about a—I say, Mr. Judge, what, if you ax her to tell it over now—I dare say she would; wouldn’t you Bridgy? You know it all now, don’t you Bridgy?
No, no Robert—no, no; it’s all gone out o’ my head now.
No matter for the dream, boy, said a judge who was comparing the parts of the blade together—no matter for the dream—these are undoubtedly—look here brother, look—look—most undoubtedly parts of the same blade.
Of a truth?
Of a truth, say you?
Yea verily, of a truth; pass the knife there—pass the knife. Be of good cheer woman of sorrow——.
Brother! brother!——.
Well brother, what’s to pay now?
Perhaps it may be well brother—perhaps I say, to have the judgment of the whole court before we bid the prisoner be of good cheer.
How wonderful are thy ways, O Lord! whispered Elder Smith, as they took the parts of the blade for him to look at.
Very true brother—very true—but who knows how the affair may turn out after all?
Pooh—pooh!—if you talk in that way the affair is all up; for whatever should happen, you would believe it a trick of the father of lies—I dare say now—.
The knife speaks for itself, said a judge.
Very true brother—very true. But he who had power to strive with Aaron the High Priest, and power to raise the dead before Saul, and power to work prodigies of old, may not lack power to do this—and more, much more than this—for the help of them that serve him in our day, and for the overthrow of the righteous——.
Pooh, pooh Nathan, pooh, pooh—there’s no escape for any body now; your devil-at-a-pinch were enough to hang the best of us.
Thirteen pence for you, said the little man at the desk.
Here a consultation was held by the judges and the elders which continued for half the day—the incredible issue may be told in few words. The boy, Robert Eveleth, was treated with favor; the witness being a large girl was rebuked for the lie instead of being whipped; the preacher Burroughs from that day forth was regarded with unspeakable terror, and the poor old woman—she was put to death in due course of law.
CHAPTER VII.
Meanwhile other charges grew up, and there was a dread everywhere throughout the whole country, a deep fear in the hearts and a heavy mysterious fear in the blood of men. The judges were in array against the people, and the people against each other; and the number of the afflicted increased every day and every hour, and they were sent for from all parts of the Colony. Fasting and prayer preceded their steps, and whithersoever they went, witches and wizards were sure to be discovered. A native theologian, a very pious and very learned writer of that day, was employed by the authorities of New England to draw up a detailed account of what he himself was an eye witness of; and he says of the unhappy creatures who appeared to be bewitched, all of whom he knew, and most of whom he saw every day of his life, that when the fit was on, they were distorted and convulsed in every limb, that they were pinched black and blue by invisible fingers, that pins were stuck into their flesh by invisible hands, that they were scalded in their sleep as with boiling water and blistered as with fire, that one of the afflicted was beset by a spectre with a spindle that nobody else could see, till in her agony she snatched it away from the shape, when it became instantly visible to everybody in the room with a quick flash, that another was haunted by a shape clothed in a white sheet which none but the afflicted herself was able to see till she tore a piece of it away, whereupon it grew visible to others about her, (it was of this particular story that Sarah Good spoke just before she was turned off) that they were pursued night and day by withered hands—little outstretched groping hands with no bodies nor arms to them, that cups of blue fire and white smoke of a grateful smell, were offered them to drink while they were in bed, of which, if they tasted ever so little, as they would sometimes in their fright and hurry, their bodies would swell up and their flesh would grow livid, much as if they had been bit by a rattle snake, that burning rags were forced into their mouths or under their armpits, leaving sores that no medicine would cure, that some were branded as with a hot iron, so that very deep marks were left upon their foreheads for life, that the spectres generally personated such as were known to the afflicted, and that whenever they did so, if the shape or spectre was hurt by the afflicted, the person represented by the shape was sure to be hurt in the same way, that, for example, one of the afflicted having charged a woman of Beverly, Dorcas Hoare, with tormenting her, and immediately afterwards, pointing to a far part of the room, cried out, there!—there! there she goes now! a man who stood near, drew his rapier and struck at the wall, whereupon the accuser told the court he had given the shape a scratch over the right eye; and that Dorcas Hoare being apprehended a few days thereafter, it was found that she had a mark over the right eye, which after a while she confessed had been given her by the rapier; that if the accused threw a look at the witnesses, the latter, though their eyes were turned another way, would know it, and fall into a trance, out of which they would recover only at the touch of the accused, that oftentimes the flesh of the afflicted was bitten with a peculiar set of teeth corresponding precisely with the teeth of the accused, whether few or many, large or small, broken or regular, and that after a while, the afflicted were often able to see the shapes that tormented them, and among the rest a swarthy devil of a diminutive stature, with fierce bright eyes, who carried a book in which he kept urging them to write, whereby they would have submitted themselves to the power and authority of another Black Shape, with which, if they were to be believed on their oaths, two or three of their number had slept.
In reply to these reputed facts however, which appear in the grave elaborate chronicles of the church, and are fortified by other facts which were testified to about the same time, in the mother country, we have the word of George Burroughs, a minister of God, who met the accusers at the time, and stood up to them face to face, and denied the truth of their charges, and braved the whole power of them that others were so afraid of.
Man! man! away with her to the place of death! cried he to the chief judge, on hearing a beautiful woman with a babe at her breast, a wife and a mother acknowledge that she had lain with Beelzebub. Away with her! why do you let her live! why permit her to profane the House of the Lord, where the righteous are now gathered together, as ye believe? why do ye spare the few that confess—would ye bribe them to live? Would ye teach them to swear away the lives and characters of all whom they are afraid of? and thus to preserve their own? Look there!—that is her child—her only child—the babe that you see there in the lap of that aged woman—she has no other hope in this world, nothing to love, nothing to care for but that babe, the man-child of her beauty. Ye are fathers!—look at her streaming eyes, at her locked hands, at her pale quivering mouth, at her dishevelled hair—can you wonder now at anything she says to save her boy—for if she dies, he dies? A wife and a mother! a broken-hearted wife and a young mother accused of what, if she did not speak as you have now made her speak, would separate her and her baby forever and ever!
Would you have us put her to death? asked one of the judges. You appear to argue in a strange way. What is your motive?—What your hope?—What would you have us do? suffer them to escape who will not confess, and put all to death who do?
Even so.
Why—if you were in league with the Evil One yourself brother George, I do not well see how you could hit upon a method more advantageous for him.
Hear me—I would rather die myself, unfitted as I am for death, die by the rope, while striving to stay the mischief-makers in their headlong career, than be the cause of death to such a woman as that, pleading before you though she be, with perjury; because of a truth she is pleading, not so much against life as for life, not so much against the poor old creature whom she accuses of leading her astray, as for the babe that you see there; for that boy and for its mother who is quite sure that if she die, the boy will die—I say that which is true, fathers! and yet I swear to you by the—
Thirteen-pence to you, brother B. for that!
—By the God of Abraham, that if her life—