Through shades and solitudes profound,
The fainting traveler wends his way;
Bewildering meteors glare around,
And tempt his wandering feet astray.
—Montgomery.
The autumnal evening was cool, dark and gusty. Storm-clouds were gathering thickly overhead, and the ground beneath was covered with rustling leaves, which, blighted by the early frosts, lay helpless and dead at the roadside, or were made the sport of the wind. A solitary horseman was slowly plodding along the road but a few miles from the village of Salem. In truth he was so near to the famous Puritan village, that, through the hills and intervening tree-tops, he could have seen the spires of the churches had he raised his melancholy eyes from the ground. The rider was not a youth, nor had he reached middle age. His face was handsome, though distorted with agony. Occasionally he pressed his hand to his side as if in pain; but maugre pain, weariness, or anguish, he pressed on, admonished by the lengthening shadows of the approach of night. Turning his great, sad, brown eyes at last to where the road wound about the valley across which the distant spires of Salem could be seen, he sighed:
"Can I reach it to-night? I must!"
Salem, that strange village to which the horseman was wending his way, in October, 1684, was a different village from the Salem of to-day. It is a town familiar to every American student, and, having derived its fame more from its historic recollections than from its commerce or industries, its name carries us back two centuries, suggesting the faint and transient image of the life of the Pilgrim Fathers, who gave that sacred name to the place of their chosen habitation. Whatever changes civilization or time may bring about, the features of natural scenery are, for the most part, unalterable. Massachusetts Bay is as it was when the Pilgrim Fathers first beheld it. On land, there are still the craggy hills, with jutting promontories of granite, where the barberries grow, and room is found in the narrow valleys for small farms, and for apple trees, and little slopes of grass, and patches of tillage where all else looks barren.
The scenery is not more picturesque to-day, than on that chill autumnal eve, when the strange horseman was urging his jaded steed along the path which led to the village. His garments were travel-stained and his features haggard.
Three hunters with guns on their shoulders were not half a mile in advance of the horseman. They, too, evidently had passed a day of arduous toil; for climbing New England hills in search of the wild deer was no easy task.
They were men who had hardly reached middle age; but their grave Puritanic demeanor made them look older than they were. Their conversation was grave, gloomy and mysterious. There was little light or frivolous about them, for to them life was sombre. The hunt was not sport, but arduous toil, and their legs were so weary they could scarcely drag themselves along.
"Now we may rejoice, John Bly, that home is within sight, for truly I am tired, and I think I could not go much farther," one of the pedestrians remarked to the man at his side.
"Right glad will I be when we are near!" answered the fatigued John Bly. "This has been a hard day with fruitless result."
"We have had some fair shots to-day," put in a third man, who walked a little behind the others.
"Verily, we have; yet what profits it to us, Samuel Gray, when our guns fail to carry the ball to the place? I had as many fair shots to-day as would bring down a dozen bucks, and yet I missed every time. You know full well I am not one to miss."
"You are not, John Louder."
Then the three men looked mysteriously at each other. They were all believers in supernatural agencies, and the fact that such a faultless marksman should miss was enough to establish in their minds a belief that other than natural causes were at work. There could be no other reason given that John Louder should miss his mark, than that his gun was "bewitched." It was an age when the last dying throes of superstition seemed fastening on the people's minds, and the spasmodic struggle threatened to upset their reason. The New Englander's mind was prepared for mysteries as the fallow ground is prepared for the seed. He was busied conquering the rugged earth and making it yield to his husbandry. His time was divided between arduous toil for bread and fighting the Indians. He was hemmed in by a gloomy old forest, the magnitude of which he did not dream, and it was only natural, with his fertile imagination, narrow perceptions and limited knowledge, that he would see strange sights and hear strange sounds. Images and visions which have been portrayed in tales of romance and given interest to the pages of poetry were made by him to throng the woods, flit through the air and hover over the heads of terrified officials, whose learning should have placed them beyond the bounds of superstition. The ghosts of murdered wives, husbands and children played their part with a vividness of representation and artistic skill of expression hardly surpassed in scenic representation on the stage. The superstition of the Middle Ages was embodied in real action, with all its extravagant absurdities and monstrosities. This, carried into the courts of law, where the relations of society and conduct or feelings of individuals were suffered to be under control of fanciful or mystical notions, could have but one effect. When a whole people abandoned the solid ground of common sense, overleaped the boundaries of human knowledge, gave itself up to wild reveries, and let loose its passions without restraint, the result was more destructive to society than a Vesuvius to Pompeii. When John Louder said his gun was bewitched, there was no incredulous smile on his companions' faces.
The political complexion of New England at that time no doubt had much to do with the superstitious awe which overspread that country. Within the recollection of many inhabitants, the parent government had changed three times. Charles II. had lived such a life of furious dissipation, that his earthly career was drawing to a close.
The New England people were zealous theologians, and Massachusetts and Plymouth hated above all sects the Roman Catholics. Charles II. could not reign long, and James, Duke of York, his brother, would be his successor, as it was generally known that Charles II. had no legitimate heir. It was hoped by some that his illegitimate son, the Duke of Monmouth, a Protestant, might succeed him. Some had even hinted that Charles II., while flying from Cromwell, had secretly married Lucy Waters, the mother of the duke; but this has never been proved in history.
The somewhat ostentatious manner in which the Duke of York had been accustomed to go to mass, during the life of his brother, was the chief cause of the general dislike in which he was held. Even Charles, giddy and careless as he was in general, saw the imprudence of James' conduct, and significantly told him on one occasion that he had no desire to go upon his travels again, whatever James might wish. When it became currently reported all over the American colonies that this bigoted Catholic would, on the death of his brother, become their ruler, the New Englanders began to tremble for their religion. There was murmuring from every village and plantation, keeping society in a constant ferment.
The three hunters were still discussing their ill luck when the sound of horse's hoofs fell on their ears, and they turned slowly about to see a stranger approaching them on horseback. His sad, gray eye had something wild and supernatural about it. His costume had at one time been elegant, but was now stained with dust and travel. It included a wrought flowing neckcloth, a sash covered with a silver-laced red cloth coat, a satin waistcoat embroidered with gold, a trooping scarf and a silver hat-band. His trousers, which were met above the knees by a pair of riding boots, like the remainder of his attire, was covered with dust.
The expression of pain on his face was misconstrued by the superstitious hunters into a look of fiendish triumph, and John Louder, seizing the arm of Bly, whispered:
"It is he!"
"Perhaps——"
"I know it, Bly, for he hath followed me all day."
"Then wherefore not give him the ball, which he hath guarded from the deer?"
"It would be of no avail, John. A witch cannot be killed with lead. He would throw the ball in my face and laugh at me."
The three walked hastily along, casting wary and uneasy glances behind as the horseman drew nearer. Each trembled lest the horseman should speak, and once or twice he seemed as if he would; but pain, or some other cause unknown to the hunters, prevented his doing so. He rode swiftly by, disappearing over the hill in the direction of Salem.
When he was out of sight the three hunters paused, and, falling on their knees, each uttered a short prayer for deliverance from Satan. As they rose, John Louder said:
"Now I know full well, good men, that he is the wizard who hath tampered with my gun."
"Who is he?"
"Ah! well may you ask, Samuel Gray, who he is; a stranger, the black man, the devil, who hath assumed this form to mislead and torment us. One can only wonder at the various cunning of Satan," and Louder sighed.
"Truly you speak, friend John," Bly answered. "The enemy of men's souls is constantly on the lookout for the unwary."
"I have met him and wrestled with him, until I was almost overcome; but, having on the whole armor of God, I did cry out 'Get thee behind me, Satan!' and, behold, I could smell the sulphur of hell, as the gates were opened to admit the prince of darkness."
The shades of night were creeping over the earth, and the three weary hunters were not yet within sight of their homes, when the horseman who had so strangely excited their fears drew rein at a spring not a fourth of a mile from the village of Salem and allowed his horse to drink. He pressed his hand to his side, as if suffering intolerable anguish, and murmured:
"Will I find shelter there?"
Overcome by suffering, he at last slipped from his saddle and, sitting among the rustling leaves heedless of the lowering clouds and threatened storm, buried his face in his hands. Two hours had certainly elapsed since he first came in sight of Salem, and yet so slow had been his pace, that he had not reached the village; but on the earth, threatened with a raging tempest, he breathed in feeble accents a prayer to God for strength to perform the great and holy task on which he was bent. He was sick and feeble. In his side was a wound that might prove fatal, and to this he occasionally pressed his hand as if in pain.
He who heareth the poor when they cry unto Him, answered the prayer of the desolate. A farmer boy came along whistling merrily despite the approaching night and storm. Not the chilling blasts of October, the dread of darkness, nor the cold world could depress the spirits of Charles Stevens, the merry lad of Salem. In fact, he was so merry that, by the straight-laced Puritans, he was thought ungodly. He had a predisposition to whistling and singing, and was of "a light and frivolous carriage." He laughed at the sanctity of some people, and was known to smile even on the Lord's Day. When, in the exuberance of his spirits, his feet kept time to his whistling, the good Salemites were horrified by the ungodly dance.
Charles Stevens, however, had a better heart, and was a truer Christian than many of those sanctimonious critics, who sought to restrain the joy and gladness with which God filled his soul. It was this good Samaritan who came upon the suffering stranger whom the three Puritans had condemned in their own minds as an emissary of the devil.
"Why do you sit here, sir?" Charles asked, leaving off his whistle. "Night is coming on, and it is growing so chill and cold, you must keep moving, or surely you will perish."
"I cannot rise," was the answer.
"Cannot rise! prythee, what ails you, friend?"
"I am sick, sore and wounded."
"Wounded!" cried Charles, "and sick, too!"
His sharp young eyes were enabled to penetrate the deepening shades of twilight, and he saw a ghastly pallor overspreading the man's face, who, pressing his hand upon his side, gave vent to gasps of keen agony. His left side was stained with blood.
"You are wounded!" Charles Stevens at last declared. "Pray, how came it about?"
"I was fired upon by an unseen foe, for what cause I know not, as, being a stranger in these parts, I have had no quarrel."
"Come, let me help you to rise."
"No, it is useless. I am tired and too faint to go further. Let me lie here. I will soon be dead, and all this agony will be over."
At this, the cheerful mind of Charles Stevens asserted itself by inspiring hope in the heart of the fainting stranger.
"No, no, my friend, never give up. Don't say die, so long as you live. It is but a few rods further to the home where I live with my mother. I can help you walk so far, and there you can get rested and warmed, and mother will dress your wound."
"Can I go?" the traveller asked.
"Men can do wonders when they try."
"Then I will try."
"I will help you."
The boy threw his strong arm around the man and raised him to his feet; but his limbs no longer obeyed his will, and he sank again upon the ground.
"It is of no avail, my good boy. I cannot go. Leave me to die."
Charles turned his eyes about to look for the stranger's horse; but it had strayed off in the darkness. To search for him would be useless, and for a moment the good Samaritan stood as if in thought; then, stripping off his coat and wrapping it around the wounded man, he said hopefully:
"I will be back soon, don't move," and he hurried away swiftly toward home. On reaching the threshold, he thanked God that he was not a wanderer on such a night.
The New England kitchen, with its pewter-filled dresser, reflecting and multiplying the genial blaze of the log-heaped fire-place, its high-backed, rush-bottomed chairs, grating as they were moved over the neatly sanded floor, its massive beam running midway of the ceiling across the room, and its many doors, leading to other rooms and attics, was a picture of comfort two hundred years ago. The widowed mother, with her honest, beautiful face surrounded by a neat, dark cap border, met her son as he entered the kitchen and, glancing at him proudly, said:
"The wind gives you good color, Charles."
"Yes, mother," rubbing his cheeks, "they do burn some;—mother."
"Well?"
"I heard you tell Mr. Bly, the other day, that you could trust me with all you had. Will you trust me with old Moll and the cart to-night?"
"What do you want with Moll and the cart?"
"To go to the big spring under the hill for a poor man who is sick and wounded."
"And alone?"
"Yes, mother."
"It is a freezing night."
"Yes, mother, and he may die. He is unable to walk. Remember the story of the good Samaritan."
After a long pause, the widow said, "Yes, you may have old Moll and the cart. Bring him here, and we will care for him; but remember that to-morrow's work must be done."
"If you have any fault to find to-morrow night, don't trust me again!" and the boy, turning to the cupboard beneath the dressers, buttered a generous slice of bread, then left the room with a small pitcher, and returned with it brimming full of cider, his mother closely noting all, while she busied herself making things to rights in her culinary department. Charles next went out and harnessed the mare to the cart, then returned to the kitchen for his bread and cider.
"Why not eat that before you go?" queried the mother.
"I am not hungry, I have had some supper, you know. Good night, mother. I will be back soon; so have the bed ready for the wounded stranger."
"God bless you, my brave boy," the mother exclaimed, as he went out and sprang into the cart. She now knew that he had taken the bread and cider for the sick man, under the hill.
Charles hurried old Moll to a faster gait than she was accustomed to go, and found the stranger where he had left him. Leaping from the cart, he said:
"I am back, sir! You said you were faint. Here's some of our cider, and if you will sit up and drink it and eat this bread, you will feel better, and here is old Moll and the cart ready to take you home where you will receive good Christian treatment until you are well enough to go on your way rejoicing."
So he went on, bobbing now here and now there and talking as fast as he could, so as not to hear the poor man's outpourings of gratitude, as he ate and drank and was refreshed. With some difficulty, he got the stranger into the cart, where, supported by the boy's strong arm, he rode in almost total silence through the increasing darkness to the home of the widow Stevens. He was taken from the cart and was soon reclining upon a bed.
His wound, though painful, was not dangerous and began to heal almost immediately. Surgery was in its infancy in America, and on the frontier of the American colonies, every one was his own surgeon.
The widow dressed the wound herself, and the stranger recovered rapidly. Charles next day found a horse straying in the forest with a saddle and holsters, and, knowing it to be the steed of the wounded stranger, he brought it home.
As the wounded man recovered he became more silent and melancholy. He had not even spoken his name and seldom uttered a word unless addressed.
One night this mysterious stranger disappeared from the widow's cottage. He might have been thought ungrateful had he not left behind five golden guineas, which, the note left behind said, were in part to remunerate the good people who had watched over and cared for him so kindly. Charles Stevens and his mother were much puzzled at this mysterious stranger, and often when alone they commented on his conduct.
Their home was outside the village of Salem, and for days they did not have a visitor; but two or three of their neighbors had seen the stranger while at their house, yet they told no one about him. His mysterious disappearance was kept a secret by mother and son. Little did they dream that in after years they would suffer untold sorrow for playing the part of good Samaritans.
John Louder and his friends had almost forgotten their day of hard luck in the woods. Their more recent hunts had proven successful, for the witches had temporarily left off tampering with their guns. The stranger whom they had met on that evening was quite forgotten.
A fortnight after the stranger disappeared, John Louder was wandering in the forest, his gun on his shoulder. The sun had just dipped below the western hills and trees, and he was approaching a small lake at which the deer came to drink.
It was a dense forest through which he was pressing his way. In places it was so dense he was compelled to part the underbrush with his hands. Centuries of summer suns had warmed the tops of the same noble oaks and pines, sending their heat even to the roots. Though the early frosts of October had stricken many a leaf from its parent stem, enough still remained to obscure the vision at a rod's distance.
Night was approaching, and John Louder, brave as he was to natural danger, had a strange dread of shadows and the unreal.
He pressed his way through the wood, until a spot almost clear of timber was in sight. This little area, which afforded a good view of the sky, although it was pretty well filled with dead trees, lay between two of those high hills or low mountains into which the whole surface of the adjacent country was broken.
Dashing aside the bushes and brambles of the swamp, the forester burst into the area with an exclamation of delight.
"One can breathe here! There is the lake to which the deer come to drink. Now, if Satan send not a witch to lead my bullets astray, perchance I may have a venison ere an hour has passed."
He gathered some dry sticks of wood and, with his flint and steel, quickly kindled a fire.
His fire was to keep off the mosquitoes, which were tormenting in that locality. The fire did not alarm the deer, for they had seen the woods burn so often that they would go quite close to a blaze.
Hardly had he lighted his fire, when he was startled by the tramp of feet near, and a moment later a horseman rode out of the woods and drew rein before him.
Louder was surprised, but by no means alarmed. A man in the forest was by no means uncommon, yet he felt a little curious to know why he was there. He reasoned that probably the fellow had lost his way, and had been attracted by his camp fire; but the stranger's question dispelled that delusion.
"Are you John Louder?" he asked.
"Yes."
"You live at Salem?"
"I do."
"Are you a Protestant?"
"I am."
"You do not believe in the transubstantiation of the body and blood of Christ into the bread and wine of the Sacrament?"
John Louder, who was a true Puritan and a hater of the Papists, quickly responded:
"I do not hold to any such theology."
"Nor do you believe in the infallibility of the pope?"
"I believe no such doctrine."
"Then there can be no doubt that you are a true Protestant."
"I am," Louder answered with no small degree of pride.
"So much the better."
The stranger dismounted from his horse and slipped his left hand through the rein, allowing the tired beast to graze, while with his right hand he began searching in his pockets for something.
"Would you have a Catholic king?" he asked while searching his pockets.
"No."
"You prefer a Protestant."
"I do."
"I knew it," and he continued, "King Charles is nearing his end. But a few months more must see the last of this monarch, and then we will have another. The great question which appeals to the heart of every Englishman to-day is, shall it be a Protestant or a Catholic?"
"A Protestant!" cried John Louder, in his bigoted enthusiasm.
"Then, John Louder, it behooves the English people to speak their minds at once, lest they have fastened upon them a monarch who will wrench from them their religious liberties."
Louder was wondering what the man could mean when the stranger suddenly took from his pocket a book. It was a book with a red back, as could be seen from the fire-light. The stranger drew from another pocket a pen and an ink horn and, in a voice which was solemn and impressive, said:
"Sign!"
John Louder was astonished at the request, or command, whichever it might be, and mechanically stretched out his hand to take the book. At this moment the camp-fire suddenly flamed up, and he afterward averred that the face of the stranger was suddenly changed to that of a devil, and from his burning orbs there issued blue jets of flame, while the whole air was permeated with sulphur. With a yell of horror, he started back, crying:
"Take it away! take away your book! I will not sign! I will not sign!"
"Sign it, and I promise you a Protestant king."
"Away! begone! The whole armor of God be between me and you."
Quaking with superstitious dread, Louder sank down upon the ground and buried his face in his hands. For several minutes he remained thus trembling with fear, and when he finally recovered sufficiently to raise his eyes, the stranger was gone.
He and his horse had vanished, and John Louder, seizing a firebrand, searched the ground for the print of a cloven foot. He found it and, snatching up his rifle, ran home as rapidly as he could. It was late that night when he reached his house and, rapping on the door, called:
"Good-wife! Good-wife, awake and let me in!"
"John Louder, wherefore came you so early, when I thought you had gone to stalk the deer and would not come before morning?"
"I have seen him!"
"Whom have you seen?"
"The man with the book."
This announcement produced great consternation in the mind of good-wife Louder. To have seen the man with the book was an evil omen, and to sign this book was the loss of one's eternal soul.
"Did you sign it, John?" she asked.
"No."
"God be praised!"
And false the light on glory's plume,
As fading hues of even,
And Love and Hope, and Beauty's bloom,
Are blossoms gathered for the tomb,—
There's nothing bright but Heaven.
—Moore.
The last expiring throe of a mighty superstition was about to convulse the little society at Salem, and, as usual in such cases, ignorance and prejudice went hand in hand for the destruction of reason and humanity. The last of the great religious persecutions was to begin, when eminent divines were to stand and point with pride to the swaying bodies of their victims, hanging from the gibbet, and call them "fire-brands of hell."
In the village of Salem, there was a strife between Samuel Parris the minister and a part of his people; a strife so bitter, that it had even attracted the attention of a general court. We all know, even in these modern days, what a furor can be created in a church, when a part of the organization is arrayed against the pastor. Sometimes the divine shepherd loses his temper and says ugly things against his flock, and thinks many which he does not utter.
Parris was a man filled with ambition and prejudice. He was a fanatic and easily driven to frenzy by opposition. An unfavorable criticism upset his highly nervous organism, and he set out to find some proof in the Scriptures for condemning his enemies. It never entered into his mind to love those who hated him.
Mr. Parris had lived in the West Indies for several years before going to Salem, and had brought with him some slaves purchased from the Spaniards. Among them were two famous in history as John and Tituba his wife. Historians disagree as to the nationality of these slaves. Some aver they were Indians, others call them negroes, while some state they were half and half. Whatever may have been their nationality, their practices were the fetichism of western Africa, and there can be no doubt that negro blood predominated in their veins. All their training, their low cunning and beastly worship, their deception and treachery were utterly unlike the characteristics of the early aborigines of America, and were purely African.
John and Tituba were full of the gross superstitions of their people, and were of the frame and temperament best adapted to the practice of demonology.
In the family of Samuel Parris, his daughter, a child of nine years, and his niece, a girl of less than twelve, began to have strange caprices. During such a state of affairs the pastor actually permitted to be formed, with his own knowledge, a society of young girls between the ages of eight and eighteen to meet at the parsonage, strangely resembling those "circles" of our own time called séances, for spiritualistic revelations. There can be no doubt that the young girls were laboring under a strong nervous and mental excitement, which was encouraged rather than repressed by the means employed by their spiritual director. Instead of treating them as subjects of morbid delusion, Mr. Parris regarded them as victims of external and diabolical influence, and strangely enough this influence, on the evidence of the children themselves, was supposed to be exercised by some of the most pious and respectable people of the community. As it was those who opposed Mr. Parris, who fell under the ban of suspicion, there is room to suspect the reverent Mr. Parris with making a strong effort to gratify his revenge.
Many a child has had its early life blighted and its nerves shattered by a ghost-believing and ghost-story-telling nurse.
No class of people is more superstitious in regard to ghosts and witches than negroes. Whatever fetich ideas may have been among the Indians of the New World, many more were imbibed from the Africans with whom they early came in contact.
Old Tituba was a horrid-looking creature. If ever there was a witch on earth, she was one, and as she crouched in one corner, smoking her clay pipe, her eyes closed, telling her weird stories to the girls, no one can wonder that they were strangely affected.
"Now, chillun, lem me tell ye, dat ef ebber a witch catches ye, and pinches ye, and sticks pins in ye, ye won't see 'em, ye won't see nobody, ye won't see nuffin," said old Tituba.
"What should we do if a witch were to catch us, Tituba?" asked Abigail Williams, the niece of Mr. Parris.
"Dar but one thing to do, chile. Dat am to burn de witch or hang 'em."
"Are there witches now?"
"Yes, dar be plenty. I see 'em ob night. Doan ye nebber see a black man in de night?"
The children were all silent, until one little girl, whose imagination was very vivid, thought she had seen a black man, once.
"When was it?" asked Abigail Williams.
"One night, when I waked out of my sleep, I saw a great black something by my side."
The little blue eyes opened so wide and looked with such earnestness on the assembled children, that there could be no doubting her sincerity.
"Can we catch witches?" Abigail asked Tituba.
"Yes."
"How?"
"Many ways."
Then she proceeded to tell of the various charms by which a witch might be detected, such as drawing the picture of the person accused and stabbing it with a knife of silver, or shooting it with a silver bullet.
"Once, when a witch was in a churn," continued Tituba, "and no butter would come, den de man, he take some hot water an' pour it in de churn, an' jist den dar come a loud noise like er gun, an' dey see er cloud erbove de churn. Bye um bye, dat cloud turned ter er woman's head an' et war an ole woman wat lib in der neighborhood and war called a witch."
"Is that true, Tituba?" asked one of the little girls.
"It am so, fur er sartin sure fact, chile."
Nothing is more susceptible than a young imagination. It can see whatever it wills, hear whatever is desired, and like wax is ready to receive any impression one chooses to put on it. A child can be made to believe it sees the most unnatural things, and in a few days Tituba and John had thoroughly convinced the children that they saw spirits and witches in the air all about them.
One evening, a pretty young woman, not over twenty-one or two, came to the parsonage, where the witches and ghosts had been holding high revel. She was a brunette with a dark keen eye and hair of jet. Her face was lovely, save when distorted by passion, and her form was faultless.
"Sarah Williams, where have you been, that we have seen nothing of you for a fortnight?" asked Mrs. Parris as the visitor entered the house.
"I have been to Boston, and but just came back yesterday. What strange things have been transpiring since I left?"
At this moment a door opened and Mr. Parris, a tall, pale man, entered from his study. The new-comer, without waiting for the pastor's wife to answer her question, rose and, grasping the hand of her spiritual adviser, cried:
"Mr. Parris, how pale you are! but then I cannot wonder at it, when I consider all I have heard."
"What have you heard, Sarah?" he asked.
"I have heard you are having trouble in your congregation."
"Who told you?"
"The rumor has gone all over the country, even reaching Boston. And they do say that the evil spirits have visited Salem to defame you."
Mr. Parris pressed his thin lips so firmly that the blood seemed to have utterly forsaken them, and his cold gray eye was kindled with a subdued fire, as he answered:
"I am far from insensible that at this extraordinary time of the devil coming down in great wrath upon us, there are too many tongues and hearts thereby set on fire of hell."
"To whom can you trace your troubles?"
"To Goodwife Nurse," answered the pastor. "It is that firebrand of hell who seeks to ruin me."
"I saw Goody Nurse," cried one of the smaller children.
"When?" asked Mr. Parris.
"Last night."
The pastor, the visitor, and the wife exchanged significant glances, and the father asked:
"Where did you see her?"
"She came with the black man to my bed."
"What did she do?"
"She asked me to sign the book."
"What book?"
"I don't know; but it was a red book."
The anxious mother, in a fit of hysterics, seized her child in her arms and cried:
"No, no, no! don't you sign the book and sell your immortal soul, child!" and she gave way to a fit of weeping, which unnerved all the children, who began to howl, as if they were beset by demons. When the hubbub was at its height, the door to an adjoining room opened, and Tituba and John stuck their heads into the room.
"She am dar! she am dar!" cried old Tituba. "I see her! I see dem bofe!"
"Yes, I see um—see um bofe, Tituba," repeated John.
"Who do you see?" asked the pastor.
"See de black man and Goody Nurse."
"Where?"
"Dar."
They pointed along the floor, then up the wall to the ceiling, where they both avowed that they saw Goodwife Nurse and the black man, or demon, dancing with their heels up and heads down.
The negro clapped his hands, patted his foot on the floor and cried aloud:
"Doan yer see um, Marster? doan yer see um, chillun?"
One little girl, who fixed her eyes on a certain dark corner of the room, thought she could see a shadow moving on the wall, but was not quite certain. The pastor was overcome by the presence of the prince of darkness in his own house, and, falling on his knees, began to pray. As a natural result, when all minds were directed to one channel, as they were by prayer, the superstitious feeling which possessed them passed away, and the household, which a few moments ago was on the verge of hysteria, became more calm, and when all rose from their knees, Mrs. Parris asked her visitor to spend the evening with them.
"I fain would stay; but I dread the long walk home."
"Samuel will accompany you, unless Charles Stevens comes, as he promised. In case he should, he can go with you."
At the mention of Charles Stevens, the young woman's eyes grew brighter, and her face became crimson.
"Sarah, have you not heard from your husband?" asked the minister.
"No; he is dead."
"Did you never hear of the pinnace?"
"No; but it was no doubt lost."
"How long since he left?"
"A year. He went to New York, was seen to leave that port, and has never been heard from."
"It is sad."
"Verily, it is," and Sarah tried hard to call up a tear, and wiped her eyes with the corner of her apron.
John and Tituba had retired to their domain, the kitchen, to conjure up more demons and plan further mischief.
Mr. Parris could not keep his mind long from the rebellious members of his flock. "I will be avenged on them," he thought. "Verily, I will be avenged for every pang they have made me suffer."
He had forgotten the command, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord."
Sarah Williams proceeded to further delve into the trouble with Mr. Parris and his church.
"Is Rebecca Nurse your enemy?" she asked.
"Verily, she is; so is her sister Goodwife Corey."
"Why are they your enemies?"
"They want another pastor, and have done all in their power to ruin me."
"Why do you endure it?" asked Sarah.
"How can I help myself? I retain my charge and shall retain it, despite Goody Nurse."
At this the youngest child said:
"Goody Nurse was at church last Lord's day with a yellow bird."
"A yellow bird?" cried all.
"Yes; I saw a yellow bird fly into the church and light on her shoulder."
Tituba had told the poor deluded child that if Goodwife Nurse were a witch, she would be accompanied by a yellow bird.
"Surely you saw no yellow bird last Lord's day."
"Verily, I did, and it came first and sat on her shoulder, and then on her knee, and, while father was preaching, it whispered in her ear."
"Could you hear what it said?" asked the pastor.
"No, for I was not near enough."
Then the pastor and his wife and visitor exchanged glances. Foolishly credulous and blindly superstitious, as well as prejudiced, their minds were like the fallow ground ready to receive any impression, however silly.
Before more could be said, there came a rap at the door, and Charles Stevens, the lad who succored the wounded stranger that had so mysteriously disappeared, entered. Charles was almost a man, and bid fair to make a fine-looking fellow. He was tall and muscular, with bold gray eyes and a face open and manly. He had lost none of his mirth, and his merry whistle still shocked some of the staid old Puritans.
As soon as Charles entered, the young widow rose, all blushing, to greet him. She was not more than one or two years his senior, and, being still beautiful, there was a possibility of her entrapping the youth.
The pastor greeted him warmly and assured him that his visit was most opportune; but he regretted very much that he had not come an hour sooner.
"Wherefore would you have had me come an hour sooner?" asked the merry Charles.
"That you might, with your own eyes, behold some of the wonderful manifestations of the prince of darkness."
With a laugh, Charles answered that such manifestations were too common to merit much comment; but as a matter of course he asked what the manifestations were.
"An example of witchcraft."
At this Charles laughed, and Mr. Parris was shocked at his scepticism.
"Wherefore do you laugh, unregenerated youth?" cried the pastor.
"A witch! I believe there are no witches," he answered.
"Would you believe your eyes, young sceptic?"
"I might even doubt my own eyes."
"Wherefore would you?"
"Nothing is more deceptive than sight; optical delusions are common. Did you see a witch?"
"Not myself; but others did."
"Who?"
"John, Tituba and Ann Parris saw the witches dancing on the ceiling, with their feet up and their heads down."
At this Charles Stevens again laughed and answered:
"Verily you are mad, Mr. Parris, to believe what those lying negroes say. They have persuaded the child into the belief that she sees strange sights."
Mr. Parris became greatly excited and cried:
"The maid sees the shape of Goody Nurse and the black man at night. They come and choke her, to make her sign the book."
"What book?"
"The devil's book. Do you not remember some time ago a stranger was at your house, who mysteriously disappeared?" Of course Charles remembered. He had never forgotten that mysterious stranger, and often wondered what had been his fate.
"The same shape appeared before John Louder in the forest, where he had gone to stalk deer, and asked him to sign the red book in which is recorded the souls of the damned."
This was the frightful story told by Louder on his return from the night's hunt, and many of the credulous New Englanders believed him. Mr. Parris, having become warmed up on his subject, resumed:
"Charles, Charles, shake off the hard yoke of the devil. Where 'tis said, 'the whole world lies in wickedness,' 'tis by some of the ancients rendered, 'the whole world lies in the devil.' The devil is a prince, yea, the devil is a god unto all the unregenerate, and, alas, there is a whole world of them. Desolate sinner, consider what a horrid lord it is you are enslaved unto, and oh, shake off the slavery of such a lord."
Charles was unprepared for such a sermon, and had no desire to be bored with it, yet he was left without choice in the matter.
The young widow came to his relief and took him off under her protection and soon made him forget that he had ever been rebuked by the parson. Certainly, he had never met a more agreeable person than Sarah Williams. Her husband was a brother of Mrs. Parris, and she wielded a great influence in the minister's family. Gradually she absorbed more and more of Charles Stevens' society, telling him of her recent visit to Boston, and of the latest news from England, inquiring about his mother, and talking only on the subjects which most interested him. He thought her a charming woman.
The hour was late ere they knew it, and Puritanic New England was an enemy to late hours. Sarah declared she must go home.
"Come again, Sarah," said Mrs. Parris.
"I will. Verily, I must go; but see, the moon is down, how dark it is."
Charles was not slower to take the hint than a young man of our own day. Humanity has been the same since Eve first evinced her power over Adam in the garden. Ever since, men have been led by a pretty face often to their ruin. Charles, in a bashful, awkward way, informed the young widow that he was going the same road, and it would not be much out of his way to accompany her to her very door. Of course she was pleased, and Charles and the young widow went away together.
"Have you never learned the fate of your husband, Sarah?" he asked.
"No; poor Samuel is dead," she answered.
"It is sad that you know not his fate. Was he drowned at sea, killed by the Indians, or murdered by the pirates?"
"I know not. I am very lonely now, Charles."
"I pity you."
"Do you?"
"Verily, I do."
"Thank you, Charles."
"Your parents are in Boston, are they not?"
"Yes."
"Do you intend to live always thus alone?"
"Oh, I trust not," and the darkness concealed the sly glance which Sarah cast from her great dark eyes on the unsuspecting youth at her side. The conversation was next changed to Mr. Parris, his quarrel with his flock, and the strange phenomenon developing at his house.
"What think you of it, Charles?"
"It is a sham."
"Oh, no, no! John, the negro man, is bewitched, and has fits."
"A good flogging would very quickly bring him out of his fits."
By this time they had reached the door of Sarah Williams' house. She turned upon the youth and, seizing his arm, in a voice trembling with emotion, said:
"Charles, I beseech of you, as you love life and happiness, do not say aught against Mr. Parris or witchcraft. We stand on the brink of something terrible, and no one knows what the end may be."
As Charles wended his way homeward, he pondered over the strange words of Sarah Williams, and asked himself:
"What does she mean?"
When time, who steals our years away
Shall steal our pleasures too,
The memory of the past will stay,
And half our joys renew.
—Moore.
The Stevens family was growing with the colonies. Of the descendants of Mathew Stevens who came to New Plymouth in the Mayflower, there were many living in Boston, New York, Salem, Rhode Island and Connecticut. The family, widely scattered as its members were, never lost track of each other. They knew all their relatives in Virginia, Maryland and Carolinia.
Charles Stevens, but a youth, was on a visit to Connecticut, when an event transpired, which has since become historical. An aunt of Charles Stevens was the wife of a certain Captain Wadsworth, and Charles was visiting at this aunt's house when the incident happened.
As the student of American history doubtless knows, the tyrannical Governor Andros of New York, claimed dominion over all that scope of country denominated as the New Netherland, a very indefinite term applied to a great scope of country extending from Maryland to the Connecticut River, to which point Andros claimed jurisdiction.
As early as 1675, he went to the mouth of the Connecticut River with a small naval force, to assert his authority. Captain Bull, the commander of a small garrison at Saybrook, permitted him to land; but when the governor began to read his commission, Bull ordered him to be silent. Andros was compelled to yield to the bold spirit and superior military power of Captain Bull, and in a towering passion he returned to New York, flinging curses and threats behind him at the people of Connecticut in general and Captain Bull in particular.
More than a dozen years had passed since Andros had been humiliated by Connecticut, and, despite his anathemas, the colony quietly pursued the even tenor of its way. At the end of that period, a most exciting incident occurred at Hartford, during the visit of Charles Stevens to that city. This historical incident has about it all the rosy hues of romance. On the very day of the arrival of Charles Stevens at Hartford, while he was talking with Captain Wadsworth, his aunt's husband, a member of the colonial assembly suddenly entered the house, his face flushed with excitement.
"What has happened, Mr. Prince?" Wadsworth asked, for he could see that the man was greatly excited.
"Governor Andros has come again," gasped Mr. Prince.