THE MINISTER'S EVIDENCE.
The trial was one which filled the community with a certain sense of
awe. It was no old woman, brought up in their midst, whose very
ignorance could be urged in judgment against her; but a brave, beautiful
lady, full of life, and bright with intellect, whose very presence as
she walked up those aisles, with a forest of halberts bristling around
her, made the proudest of her judges hold his breath. The prisoner sat
down upon a bench placed near the pulpit, within sight of the
communion-table which was surrounded by her judges, for whom a platform
had been built, lifting them in sight of the people. She was very pale,
and her eyes had a mournful look inexpressibly touching, but there was
neither timidity nor unconcern in her appearance; she seemed quiet as a
lamb, but weary unto death, like one who had been driven a long way, and
through rough places, to be slaughtered at last.
The meeting-house was crowded. The square pews, the galleries and
staircases, groaned under a weight of human life. Men crowded upon each
other, like hounds on the scent, only to obtain a glimpse of the
beautiful witch, or to catch a tone of her voice. Like sportsmen who had
brought down a splendid bird in their search after common game, the
rabble gloried in the queenliness and grace of its victim. The public
had become tired of hanging withered old crones on the witch-gallows,
and wanted exactly a creature like that, to give piquancy and zest to
their terrible hunt after human life.
Inside and out, the meeting-house was beset with a breathless throng.
The windows were open, though the air was sharp and full of frost, that
the curious crowd, which trampled down the snow without, might get a
glimpse of that pale face. The forest, out of whose bosom the city of
Boston had been cut, swept down close to the building, and the crowd
extended into its margin. It was observed that a few Indians mingled
with the people in this direction, and that others were occasionally
seen moving among the naked trees farther up the woods, where a hemlock
hollow broke off the view.
When the trial commenced, and the prosecuting attorney was about to open
his case, drawing all eyes to the meeting-house and the proceedings
within, a train of savages came gliding out of these hemlock shadows,
and mingling imperceptibly with the crowd, through which they moved like
a brook stirring the long grass of a meadow.
It was a common thing for friendly Indians to mix in such crowds, and no
one observed that a sort of military precision marked the movement of
these seemingly friendly savages, even while penetrating the multitude,
and that they dropped into line, after entering the meeting-house,
forming a cordon from the platform, on which the judges sat, to the
front entrance doors.
Had these savages been in full costume, their number might have seemed
formidable enough to excite some anxiety; but they wore no war-paint,
and came after the fashion of a friendly nation, with blankets to keep
them from the cold, and a movement so quiet that their very presence
gave little apprehension.
At their head, and walking so far in advance that no one but a keen
observer would have guessed him of the party, came a young man,
handsomely garbed after the fashion of the times, as a person of
condition might be, and with a certain air of self-centred ease that
would have distinguished him in any place where the general attention
was not fixed on one point.
He was a young man of wonderful presence, dark like a Spaniard, with
quick, brilliant eyes, and features finely chiselled, bold in the
outline, and yet delicate. His mouth had a beautiful power of
expression, and his forehead was like dusky marble, cut when the artist
was thinking of war and tempest. This man had made his way close up to
the platform, where the judges were seated, and listened with keen
attention to the proceedings.
The prosecuting counsel opened his case with great vigor and eloquence.
Then witnesses for the crown were called, and Samuel Parris stood forth.
The old man was agitated, but firm in his sense of right. It was seldom
that a witness of so much dignity appeared upon a trial like that, for
usually the accusers, like their victims, were persons of low position
and small attainments. Here the wisdom and piety of the crowd rose up in
array against one helpless woman.
Samuel Parris required no questioning. He told his story with brief
earnestness, unconsciously drawing conclusions from the facts he
related, fatal to the prisoner, but with a solemn conviction of their
truth.
"Did he recognize the prisoner at the bar?" he was asked. "Yes, he had
known her some months; it had seemed to him from the first that she must
have been familiar to him years ago. That was doubtless one of her
delusions; but the feeling had led him to think of her with friendly
interest, and extend hospitalities which had conducted him and his
family into a deadly snare."
"Where had he seen her first?"
"In the midst of a terrible storm, which the inhabitants of Boston might
well remember; when the shores were lashed and trampled down by the
tempest, where the waves rioted and tore against each other like mad
animals, and out to sea all was one turmoil of wind, waters, and black,
angry clouds.
"That woman's influence must have been infernal in its power, for in the
midst of this storm he had been impelled forth to the heights--he, a
feeble old man, urged forward by a premonition, that, in the black
turmoil of the tempest, he would find something waited for all his life.
He went, with his garments in the wind, and the cold rain beating
against his temples--went, and saw, in the midst of the storm, a great
ship heaving shoreward, with vast clouds falling around her, lurid and
luminous with a red sunset, in the midst of which stood that woman--the
prisoner. As he watched, a young man had come up to him on the heights,
even Norman Lovel, the youth who was but now whispering to the woman.
This young man confessed there, in the whirl of the wind, that he, too,
had been impelled to seek the shore, and look for some great good, which
was to come to him up from the stormy sea.
"They saw the ship in company. That woman was upon its deck, around her
surged angry billows and looming clouds, fringed for a moment by the
sunset.
"They saw the woman come down the side of the vessel, where it rocked
and plunged like a desert horse in the lasso; saw her put off in a small
boat, amid the boiling waves; saw the boat leap and reel toward the
land. He and young Lovel rushed down together to the base of the hills,
far into the waves. They saw the boat strike, saw it crushed into atoms
among the rocks, and saw the woman weltering in a whirlpool of waters.
The two, he and the young man, rushed into the waves, breasted them,
battled with them like lions. A wild strength came to his arms, a
supernatural power, that neither belonged to his feeble organization nor
his age. From that time, no doubt, the evil one possessed him. How he
tore the woman from the waves that had engulfed her he never knew; for
the youth was hurled upon the shore, cold and dead, grasping her
garments with both hands.
"The youth was dead, he could solemnly testify to that, for he felt his
pulse, and kept one hand long over his heart feeling for the hushed
life, but there was neither breath nor pulse--Lazarus, in his tomb, was
not more lifeless when the Saviour looked upon him. Yes, the youth was
surely dead. But when the woman arose from the sand, with her hair
dropping salt rain, and her lips purple with cold, she saw him lying
there, prone and white at her side. Then her pale face lighted up with
supernatural gleams. She lifted his head and breathed upon it. She
gathered him to her bosom, and pressed her cold lips down upon his
forehead and his marble mouth--those kisses, the unearthly warmth of her
eyes, brought him to life. She had purchased immortality of the evil
one, and gave part of it to him.
"This was the one great act of sorcery that he had witnessed, and to
which he now bore testimony before the most high God. After that, the
woman obtained an unbounded power over the youth, who manifested an
uncontrollable desire for her company; he had neglected his old friends
and the most binding attachments; body and soul he had become the serf
of her diabolical power."
Here Samuel Parris paused. The perspiration rose in great drops to his
forehead, his hands shook as he wiped the moisture away.
"And is this all?" demanded the judge, while the audience broke the
silence by hoarse murmurs, that stole through the windows, and grew
louder as the people outside took them up. "Is this all?"
"No," said the old man, and the white hair rose slowly from his temples,
while shadows gathered about his mouth, "I, too, was in the hands of
this woman of Endor--I, the servant of the Lord, who have broken the
holy bread to God's people for more than fifty years. Here, in this
consecrated building, while I stood with the sacred wine in my hands,
after that just man, William Phipps, had drank of it in baptism, this
woman appeared to me. Standing in the very spot where he had partaken of
the sacrament, she appeared to me as an angel of light, for her eyes
shone like stars, and a smile of tender humility beamed on her
face--with those eyes, with that smile, and with a voice that might have
dropped from the golden harps to which cherubs sing. She won me into a
great sacrilege."
Again the minister wiped his brow; the judge grew pale, and leaned
forward breathlessly. The audience was still as death; you could hear
the shivering of the naked tree boughs afar off in the forest, but
nothing nearer.
Amid this appalling hush, Barbara Stafford lifted her face to the
witness, and a faint, pitying smile lay like a shadow on her lips. She
seemed about to speak, but the judge lifted his hand.
"A great sacrilege, brother Parris?"
The minister cast a pleading look upon the judges at the bar and his
brethren of the ministry, as if beseeching forbearance.
"Yes! a great sacrilege. As I stood, with the unleavened bread before me
and the sacred wine in my hand--stood alone in this holy building, for
all else had departed--the prisoner, Barbara Stafford, by the sweet
wiles which I speak of, won me to give the wine to her, that she might
taste it; and so beguiled of the devil, I broke with her of the bread
which is a symbol of the body of Christ. This, brethren, was my sin--I
was beset of the evil one and fell!"
A groan broke from the ministers that heard the confession. The judge
bent his forehead to the palm of his hand, shading the pallor of his
features. The foreman of the jury muttered a low prayer, and the jury
whispered a solemn amen.
Even the face of young Lovel took an expression of affright. The
stillness that reigned in the body of the house was appalling.