Master Raymond Goes to Boston.
Whatever the immediate effect of Dulcibel's prediction had been,
Mistress Ann Putnam was now about again, as full of wicked plans, and as
dangerous as ever. She knew, for everybody knew, that Master Ellis
Raymond had gone to Boston. In a village like Salem at that time, such
fact could hardly be concealed.
"What had he gone for?
"To see a friend," Joseph Putnam had said.
"What friend?" queried Mistress Ann. That seemed important for her to
know.
She had accused Dulcibel in the first place as a means of hurting Joseph
Putnam. But now since the trial, she hated her for herself. It was not
so much on account of the prediction, as on account of Dulcibel's
terrific arraignment of her. The accusation that her husband was her
dupe and tool was, on account of its palpable truth, that which gave her
perhaps the greatest offence. The charge being once made, others might
see its truth also. Thus all the anger of her cunning, revengeful nature
was directed against Dulcibel.
And just at this time she heard from a friend in Boston, who sent her a
budget of news, that Master Raymond had taken dinner with Captain Alden.
"Ah," she thought, "I see it now." The name was a clue to her. Captain
Alden was an old friend of Captain Burton. He it was, so Dulcibel had
said, from whom she had the gift of the "yellow bird."
She knew Captain Alden by reputation. Like the other seamen of the time
he was superstitious in some directions, but not at all in others. He
would not for the world leave port on a Friday--or kill a mother Carey's
chicken--or whistle at sea; but as to seeing witches in pretty young
girls, or sweet old ladies, that was entirely outside of the average
seaman's thoughts. Toward all women in fact, young or old, pretty or
ugly, every sailor's heart at that day, as in this, warmed
involuntarily.
She also knew that the seamen as a class were rather inclined to what
the godly called license in their religious opinions. Had not the
sea-captains in Boston Harbor, some years before, unanimously refused to
carry the young Quakeress, Cassandra Southwick, and her brother, to the
West Indies and sell them there for slaves, to pay the fines incurred by
their refusal to attend church regularly? Had not one answered for the
rest, as paraphrased by a gifted descendant of the Quakers?--
"Pile my ship with bars of silver--pack with coins of Spanish gold,
From keelpiece up to deck-plank the roomage of her hold,
By the living God who made me! I would sooner in your bay
Sink ship and crew and cargo, than bear this child away!"
And so Master Raymond, who it was rumored had been a great admirer of
Dulcibel Burton, was on a visit to Boston, to see her father's old
friend, Captain John Alden! Mistress Putnam thought she could put two
and two together, if any woman could. She would check-mate that game--and
with one of her boldest strokes, too--that should strike fear into the
soul of even Joseph Putnam himself, and teach him that no one was too
high to be above the reach of her indignation.
The woman was so fierce in this matter, that I sometimes have
questioned, could she ever have loved and been scorned by Joseph Putnam?