patience at Bowson's credulity and cowardice. "If you have neglected your duty, go home and do it; don't stay here whining about it, and making a public spectacle of your poltroon spirit."

And, releasing his button-hole without much ceremony, he marched off in haughty indignation. While the forlorn deacon stared open-mouthed after his unsympathizing relative, a young gentleman in broad-skirted clericals came up and addressed him. He was a very noticeable man, although a young one; for he had a fine mien of calm stateliness and authority; a face not more than thirty years old, indeed, but marked with earnest thought and hard study; a high forehead, dark piercing eyes, aquiline nose, and thin lips, mobile yet resolute. The only particular which detracted from his dignity was an air of conceit, chiefly perceptible in a precise pronunciation, as if he thought his words worthy of the most minute notice, and wished to mark them off, as it were, by vocal italics and capitals. "Yes, my friend, you do well to be troubled," said he. This is, indeed, a time for each one of us to blow afresh the flames of prayer upon his altar. If the fire of holiness hath grown cold in your heart, warm it up quickly by prayer. Better have the soul warmed thus, even at the price of many a night's sleep, than have it scorched by these firebrands of Satan that are hidden among us. Better have the soul warmed in this world, at no matter what cost of groans and tears, than have it heated up hereafter in the lake of fire and brimstone. Prayer, brother, hath an incredible potency. I have read of a good man who, for a long time, was grievously tempted of an obstinate devil, and, in general, could find no relief. But whenever he went to his ordinary place of devotion, the devil was used to say to him, Well, if you are going to pray, I will take a turn in the street.' Pray thus, my friend. I would plead with you, also, to vomit all sin with a very hearty detestation. And I will tell you, that I verily believe the unpardonable sin, itself. is most usually committed by professors of the Christian religion falling into witchcraft."

After a few more remarks, in the same strain of fanciful, though solemn, rhetoric, the elder shook hands with the abashed deacon, and walked away. As soon as Bowson could recover his di

minutive presence of mind, he clutched a neighbor by the arm, and asked, "Who was that profitable shepherd?"

"Sure, that be Elder Mather," replied the person addressed. "Hearn him at Boston. Good preacher-loud preacher. Hearn him at Boston. Yes, yes; that be Elder Cotton Mather."

"Oh, Good-man Peabody, is that truly Elder Cotton Mather!" exclaimed Bowson, with the air of a man who had lost a great opportunity. "Would that I could have his prayers. I will ask him for them, as he desires to save a cold professor."

Her

And away he went through the crowd, with a sidling haste, and a simple, anxious expression, Jike that of a scared sheep, as pitiable as it was ludicrous. A minute afterward, the judges, six grave, dignified men, clad in black robes, and browed with a fine air of authority, swept through the multitude. The church door was flung open for them, and they passed in, followed by a sturdy rush of eager, heavy-limbed colonists. Presently came the prisoner, her form bent under the burden of eighty-five years, as under a weighty cross, and each of her manacled hands grasped by a stout constable. bleared, lustreless gray eyes were almost constantly fixed on the ground, as if watching where she could plant least painfully her feeble, uncertain footsteps; and, if once in a while they glanced sidelong and furtively at the crowd, it was with a vague and glazed regard, which expressed no clear comprehension of the scene, no interest beyond that of silly curiosity. One side of her mouth twitched incessantly, as if her whole frame were convulsed by the effort of keeping pace with her jailers. As she neared the doorway, More came up, accompanied by Rachel, and said, with characteristic boldness: "God be with you, Bridget."

She recognized her foster-son, and strained towards him with a piteous whine and a sudden sidelong motion, like a chained dog trying to reach his master. "Bless ye, darlint," she whimpered, "I'd like to kiss yer hands; but they won't let the owld woman go."

And away she was hurried, mumbling some incoherence about her darlint, her dolls, and her prince. Rachel looked after her with large troubled eyes; and halting there, said that she did not wish

Rachel walked back alone to Deacon Bowson's, encountered at every step by men, women, and children, who were hastening on to the witch assizes. The morning wore away heavily in the kitchen; dinner-time came, and still nobody returned from the court. But, an hour or so after noon, a crowd filled the streets, and Rachel heard people call out triumphantly to the houses in passing: "Guilty! guilty!" Presently her father and uncle appeared at the gate, walking in company, but evidently on terms of the broadest disagreement. "Poor old fool! why couldn't she keep her Irish, old wife nonsense to herself!" 66 What, growled More as he entered. father?" "What was it, brother?" asked Rachel and sister Ann, eagerly. "Gibberish," exclaimed More; mere bab

ble, doting babble, from old Bridget, and from Deputy Governor Stoughton,

as well."

"Be gorra, yer honor," broke in Teague Rooney, who had come in at the back door, "ye're jist right there, begging yer honor's pardon. They wor too hard upon the poor old Irish crayther."

"Teague, hold your tongue," cried the excited deacon, resolved to govern, at least, the opinions of his own serving

man.

"Go on, Teague. You have as much brains as any of us," said More, looking sarcastically at Bowson. But the Irishman thought best to remain respectfully silent; for the day had not yet come in New England when servants are better than their lords. Hear this now, and tell me if it is not babble," continued More. "Judge Stoughton shakes his empty head at that poor old gammer, and demands, Prisoner, have you any one to appear for you?' Whereat Bridget, whose skull is likewise empty, casts her eyes up to the ceiling, and says, 'I have.' Then presently she whimpers and mumbles: No; I had a prince, high and mighty, but he is gone. Whereupon a score of other empty heads cry out: She means Beel

6

zebub; she is condemned out of her own mouth.' Is not that babble? I ask you. Are we not all worthy of Bedlam together? They say the Turks worship lunatic people as inspired. If a Turk were to come here, he would be on his knees to every man in Salem."

"Ah, Henry! are we not commanded to speak respectfully of those in authority?" said Mrs. Bowson in a deprecating tone. "But I shall not dispute with you. You are older and more learned than I. Only I think it would be well for you to say a page of the catechism to yourself before you talk any further on this matter."

"Go to the next trial, sister Ann, and see whether you will come out speaking respectfully of those in authority," was More's reply. He evidently did not choose just now to meditate upon the catechism. Perhaps the recollection of that pamphlet, and of his boyish sufferings in committing it to memory, was rather exasperating than soothing.

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"Well," he continued, "there sat Parris playing the advocate, and examining the witnesses. There he sat with his witch-books before him, minding me of an old rattlesnake watching her eggs. One thing was ridiculous and contradictory enough. The indictment ran for sorcery and witchcraft upon Elizabeth Parris and Abigail Williams, whereby they were consumed, pined and wasted away. Now, the brats are as well-conditioned as they were a year agone. Abigail, in especial, is as fat and fair as if Beelzebub had been shut up these thousand years."

"But what say you of Elizabeth?" exclaimed the deacon, by way of protest against all this skepticism. Is she not lean? Is she not yellow?"

"Wasn't she lean and yellow years before she ever took to this howling?" answered More. "God help us if all the spleeny and bilious people in the world are to have the right of hanging somebody! How would you like to dangle from the gallows because your neighbor's brat was teething? Well, to go on, Elizabeth fell down at the first wink of old Bridget, and squealed like a rat on a pitchfork. I was glad to observe that she severely kicked the fat shins of Doctor Griggs, when he undertook to hold her."

"Bedad, yes; she worried that old gintleman's hind quarters powerfully," interrupted Teague.

"And oh what a buzzing, what a groaning, what a crowding to see!" continued More. "The judges leaned forward and rustled their gowns. Sheriff Willard caught hold of Bridget as if he feared she would fly out of the window. And, as for you, brother Bowson, what did you say amen for?"

"I don't know," muttered the deacon, looking foolish as well as angry, and sidling away to another part of the kitchen.

"Yes, and there is another thing I would like to know," More went on. "I would like to know whether Elizabeth Parris has not been whipped into this business, as they say Tituba has been. If I have any skill in reading faces, she had no wish to put her hand on the Bible and speak those words: So help me, God!" I thought she trembled in real affright, and looked at her father beseechingly, as if desiring, even at that late hour, to plead off. She is a mischievous, deceitful little monkey; but I opine that she would have been glad to sink through the floor rather than take that oath. No matter; Parris scowled her down, and then drew out of her more idle tales than there are threads in a spider's web. She said it was all of Goody Bishop that she was so tormented and convulsed; Goody Bishop haunted her in various airy shapes; brought her the devil's red book for signature; teased her to join company in witch communions; promised her ease and pleasure if she would list under Satan, and threatened her with all sorts of dreadful brandings, and pinchings, and prickings if she refused. You never heard such babble. And, finally, to prove it all. she once more falls down howling, flounders about like a hen with its head off, and spits two or three pins, which I dare say she moused out of her stomacher. It was the same thing over again when they brought up Abigail and Tituba, and John Indian, and the other afflicted. Parris roused them up when they grew dull; bullied them with God and the devil, and got out of them all the lies that were to be had for cunning questions. It was like running a hayfork into a rotten corn-heap, and starting out the rats and field-mice."

But what say you to the poppets? What say you to the depositions of the doctors ?" exclaimed the deacon in a voice of trembling eagerness; for it cut

the poor man to the heart to hear the court thus derided; and yet he hardly dared utter a word in its defense, so fearful was he of More's superior intellect. Accordingly, as soon as he had propounded his two questions, he grinned deprecatingly, and sidled away with a quivering lip, as if about to burst into tears in some corner.

"What I think is, that the depositions of the doctors and the poppets of old Bridget ought to be burned in the same bonfire," replied More. "You must know, sister Ann, that one sensible juryman inquired whether Bridget were not commonly supposed to be crazed in her intellectuals. Whereupon Parris reads the affidavits of these five doctors, to the purport that they had examined the prisoner and found her compos mentis. For my part, I would as lief have the affidavit of Bridget concerning the five doctors. But Parris nodded his head, as if this settled the matter; and then added, with a spiteful stare at the juryman: I think none but persons of a particular dirtiness of spirit will dispute that evidence.' After which he called for the poppets; and John Willard pulled them out of his pockets. What a hustling of feet there was, and what a stretching of necks to catch sight of those manikins of rags stuffed with goat's-hair! One would have thought that such a thing as a child's doll had never before been seen in New England; nor such a thing as an old woman in her second childhood."

"But how strangely the hag started up at sight of them. And what a dreadful fit Elizabeth Parris was seized withal!" broke in the believing deacon.

"Ay, ay," scornfully retorted More, "about as strange as to see your old mother sing psalms at dinner; and about as dreadful as the yelpings that Frisk gives us thereupon."

The deacon groaned in timid anguish of spirit, and More proceeded with his skeptical comments: "Yes, when Bridget snatched at the poppets, Elizabeth rolled up her eyes and went down on the floor with a squall, which was so easy to do, that brother Bowson here could have done it better."

"But she roared again when she was carried into the entry, where she could not see the hag spitting upon the poppets and stroking them," persisted the deacon, still zealous for the honor of witchcraft.

"Why, so she did," answered More. "I allow it readily. But then she is always roaring, and must roar in the right place now and then. Besides, could she not hear that hush of expectation that came over the house, and that loud coughing which gripped Elder Parris just at the right time? Oh, to see how grave and good men can be put upon by fanatics and tricksters! Why, a mountebank does more than we have seen to day; and yet no one believes that he hath dealings with the devil. Then what a shame to hear stout, kindly John Willard bellowing out: 'Sirs, she is seized!' How much better to use that brave voice of his in hallooing at his oxen! But the vilest thing of all was the charge which Stoughton made unto the jury. One of them had objected that the afflicted were not in any way visibly pined and consumed. Whereupon our second Daniel addresses them thus: Sirs, you are not to question whether the bodies of the afflicted are really pined and consumed as expressed in the indictment, but whether the said afflicted do not suffer such torments as naturally tend to pine and consume them. This, sirs, is pining and consuming in the sense of the law.' That was his very phrase, mark you. After such urgings as that, it is no wonder that the jury presently brought her in guilty. And then, to crown all, my good brother-in-law here must once more cry amen."

"I thought that I ought to give in my poor testimony," stammered Bow

son.

"And very poor testimony it was; as poor as any of the rest," replied More angrily.

Dinner, the cold dinner of that day, scarcely tasted, scarcely complimented with a sit-down, was over. The deacon, with his usual kindly attention to his mother's age and infirmities, had drawn her chair away from the table, and the old good-wife was humming some of her favorite melodies, when there came a tap at the door, and Elder Hig inson entered. What a mild, grave kindliness there was in this old gentleman's face; what an outgoing benevolence even in his manner of saying good afternoon. Nor was his philanthropy all in his visage; a good deal of it came out through his pocket; and he was a second Moses for patience under injuries. He came now, it seems, to offer

the deacon a deed of hospitality, which was beyond the capacities of his own dwelling. "Brother Bowson," said he, "I desire a lodging place for one or two travelers, who must tarry over night in Salem. My house is full, as are the inns, also; so great is the crowd brought upon us by these trials. You know Elder Burroughs, who was pastor of the village a few years ago? Can you give him and another worthy gentleman sleeping room until to-morrow?"

The deacon was of course rejoiced to offer his bed and board to a minister. He hoped Elder Burroughs would stay, not only till to-morrow, but until the court was over; and he eagerly inquired whether the reverend tourist had brought news of any witch discoveries in Wells, his present residence, or otherwheres in that neighborhood. "Indeed I know not," said Higginson. "I have not questioned him on that point. But I should certainly hope that there have been no such woeful discoveries."

"But-but-Elder Higginson-I, I— you, you-have faith in witches, I hope," cried the deacon.

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Truly I do not like to pronounce for or against the belief in witchcraft," said the old man. It may be that there were witches anciently, and none now; just as there were formerly miracles, but none now. But this I know, that in our days men have often been_deceived in this matter of sorcery. sons have been loudly cried out upon for it, who afterwards approved themselves guiltless, and who always had a name, not only for a worthy life, but even for a devout one. There was a virtuous and godly woman in Groton, in Connecticut, who was charged of this sin by one Elizabeth Knap that was possessed; but after the woman had prayed earnestly with and for her accuser, the latter acknowledged that she had been deceived by Satan, and had spoken evil of her good neighbor without a cause."

"Oh, sir, what if Goody Bishop had prayed with her accusers!" exclaimed the simple deacon with his usual inconsequence.

"It is a very appropriate and weighty instance, sir, that story of Knap," observed More. "And now, what think you of the examinations here? What think you of the way in which our witnesses are suffered to go about free and herd together?"