CONCLUDING TESTIMONY.
The prosecuting attorney had been vigilant in the management of his
case. No one event of Barbara Stafford's life, since she landed in
Boston, had escaped him. Jason Brown and his wife took the witness stand
next. The honest sailor was prejudiced against the prisoner. He solemnly
believed that she had turned his own peaceful home into a den of
iniquity, and made it the centre of a fearful witch-gathering. His
frank, honest face, and profound self-conviction, aided his words
powerfully.
Yes, he knew the woman. She came over from England in the same vessel
with him. During the voyage he had seen her cheerful, and easily
pleased. She always had a sweet look and kind word for every one on the
ship, till all hands on board, even to the cabin boy, almost worshipped
her. Still no one ever knew from whence she came, or what business she
had in the new country. She had plenty of gold, and gave it liberally to
all who served her.
Brown had never seen any thing very remarkable in her conduct while on
ship board; sometimes he heard her singing in the cabin, and often, as
the sun went down, he had seen her gazing westward with a bright,
hopeful countenance, as if she expected some great happiness in that
direction.
When the storm rose and drove them furiously toward the land, Barbara
Stafford came on deck with her cloak on, and seemed to glory in braving
the tempest, which swept her so furiously coastward. She was fearless of
danger, and exulted in every fierce plunge of the vessel, which made
even tried sailors turn pale.
At last they came in sight of the harbor, but were compelled to cast
anchor, the heave and swell of the ocean were so tumultuous. As the
vessel lay there, tugging like a chained beast at its hausers, with a
heavy fog drifting over it, and red clouds heaped up in the west, this
woman had pleaded with him to let down a boat and put her on
shore--anywhere, so that her feet touched the soil of America. She
offered a handful of golden guineas to several of the men, but they all
refused, holding the attempt to be certain death. How he was persuaded
to let down the boat, unless impelled by the witchery in her look and
voice, it was impossible for him to say. Certainly he did it, and not
for the gold, for he only took one piece. The boat was dashed to pieces,
and but for that God-fearing man, Samuel Parris, and young Lovel, every
living soul in it would have been lost.
In answer to the question if he knew any thing more of the prisoner's
practices in witchcraft, Jason Brown replied:
Some weeks after the woman left his house she returned to it one evening
alone, just after dark. Before she entered, himself, his wife, and the
hired man had been terrified by a crowd of dark faces piled, as it
seemed, against the window and all peering in with eyes wild and bright
as fiery stars. They had seen feathers wave, and red garments gleam
through the glass, but tumultuously and half lost in shadows. Before any
one could move to search this strange appearance more thoroughly, the
faces disappeared, and did not come back.
Directly after this, one of the carpenters at work on the ship came in,
and being questioned declared that he had seen nothing unusual about the
house, though his path led him almost around it. While he was saying
this Barbara Stafford came in, with her hood thrown back, her garments
disturbed and covered with dust. She besought them almost with tears to
hasten the repairs going on in the nearly wrecked vessel, and left a
purse of gold in his hands to be used to speed the work. Then the woman
went away in haste, as she had entered the house.
"Did they follow her to see where she went?"
"Not exactly; but they gathered around the window and watched her as she
walked towards the woods. As they stood there, she rode forth out of the
shadows on a white horse, and with her came two dark figures; no doubt
the fiends who attended her. Scarcely were they swallowed up by the
darkness, when all the woods swarmed visibly with dusky figures. He saw
them moving under the trees and sweep in a slender column through a
small opening into the thick of the forest again, where the weird
pageant disappeared, following the prisoner."
In the morning after these strange doings, Brown had gone to his barn,
where some boxes had been stored for a passenger who came over in the
ship, and which he was to call for. These boxes were remarkably heavy.
Of course he did not know any thing of their contents; but he was a
powerful man and could not lift one of them an inch from the floor. But
he found the corner where they stood empty. Every box was gone, and
nothing but some trusses of loose hay remained. Astonished at this, he
had searched the ground for wagon tracks, or some other sign of the way
in which the boxes had been carried off; but nothing was there; not a
wheel track or hoof print. Still the earth was trampled down, but not
with human beings, barefooted or with honestly made shoes on their feet.
This was all Jason Brown had to say, except that he had felt the strange
influence, described by so many, when the woman addressed him. In spite
of himself he was always constrained to lift his hat when she went by.
Indeed, so far had this feeling prevailed, that he had more than once
put the quid of tobacco back into his pocket when it was almost to his
mouth, because she happened to be looking that way; and would hide his
cup of grog behind him if she chanced to be present when the rations of
gin or rum were dealt out to the men. Jason Brown could not account for
these things. He had never felt afraid or awkward in the presence of
womankind before. If it was witchcraft--well, he couldn't say that the
sin was altogether an unpleasant one. He knew nothing more; but his old
woman had been with the prisoner a good deal, and might have something
to tell.
As Jason Brown stepped heavily down into the crowd, his wife appeared on
the stand, prim, cold, and self-possessed, like a statue of wood. She
looked toward the prisoner with a cold, quiet glance, and then gave
herself up to be questioned. Her story did not vary from that of the
other witnesses, save that she threw no feeling into it, but spoke the
simple truth without even an implied comment. Yes, she had loved the
lady, loved her so well from the very first, that it seemed almost like
a sin. But it appeared to her that this affection sprang out of the
dreariness left at her hearth after the two children died. It was very
pleasant to sit at her spinning-wheel and see the sweet, mournful look
on that face. Goody Brown could not help but think that the poor lady
had lost something that she loved, and felt lonesome over it, for
sometimes she would sit minutes together looking out on the sea till
tears filled her eyes and blinded them. It was these tears that went to
her heart. Others might have been bewitched by her smiles and her sweet
voice, but she always thought of her children when the lady fell to
crying, and longed to kneel down at her feet, sorrowful like herself,
and pray God to help them both.
Had the witness seen nothing else that was strange in the prisoner?
Yes; one thing did happen which she had never mentioned to any human
being except her husband. One day when Barbara Stafford was taking some
things out of a trunk, Goody Brown went into her room suddenly, when the
sunshine was streaming in at the window, and saw what seemed to her a
wreath of living fire on the bed; a pair of handcuffs blazed in the same
light, and a chain, half gold, half flame, rippled across the pillow.
The prisoner started when she opened the door, and made an attempt to
fling a purple silk mantle, that she had just taken from the trunk, over
these things, but seeing that it was too late she dropped the garment
and, pale with fright, asked what brought the housewife there, in a
voice that was almost cross.
The witness looked in wonder at these strange objects, and asked if they
would not set the bed on fire; at which the lady smiled, answering: "No,
they were only bright stones playing with the sunshine, but cold and
hard as rocks."
Then the witness touched the chain and saw that the prisoner spoke
truth. It seemed like handling drops of frozen water. She asked what
they were good for, and what use they could be put to. At which the lady
sat the wreath upon her head, hung the chain around her neck, and
fastened the handcuffs to her wrist with a snap that sounded like the
click of a lock. She stood close by the window, and it appeared as if a
rainbow had been broken over her.
Then the witness asked what the stones were called. The prisoner did not
answer, but took them from her head and arms with a deep sigh, saying
that they were of little use to her, and only made her heart ache. Then
she put them up in a leather box lined with red velvet, and pressed them
down into her trunk.
The witness had heard that witches sometimes crowned themselves with
fire; and this thing troubled her even then, for the lady had not acted
like herself, but turned red and white in the same breath, and spoke
sharply, as she had never done before. The witness had not wished to
stay in the room after that. When Barbara Stafford came out she looked
very anxious, and asked Goody Brown not to mention any thing about the
stones she had seen, or the rich garments packed in her trunk, as the
farm-house stood in a lonely place, and the knowledge that such things
could be found there might tempt robbers, she said.
This request, and the evident anxiety of the prisoner, had given the
witness some troubled thoughts, but she had not really considered the
fiery stones as witch ornaments till after Barbara Stafford's visit that
night, when the shadows swarmed so thickly along her path.
Here the judge asked if the prisoner's trunk had been searched, and was
answered that a thorough examination had been made, but no jewels found.
Then Goody Brown remembered another event. One day she had gone down to
the wharf to carry her husband's dinner to him on shipboard, and was
returning home, when a young man, who looked like a foreigner, came from
the direction of her dwelling, carrying a small travelling-bag in his
hand. He passed her, walking fast, and lifting his hat as if she had
been a lady.
But what was there in this to implicate the prisoner?
Nothing, only that same man had come to the house to ask for a drink of
milk on the very day that Barbara was rescued from the waves, and the
housewife had caught a glimpse of him coming out of her room as she lay
sleeping there. Besides, the boxes which had disappeared so strangely
were his property. More than this. When Goody went back to her house she
found the door open, and the trunk in which Barbara Stafford had packed
the witch crown had been moved from its place. The lock was secure. But
she knew that it had been opened, by a girdle of blue ribbon which hung
over the edge, and was half shut in.
Was this all the witness had to say?
Yes; she knew nothing more, except that in every thing the lady had been
kind and gentle in her house--more like an angel of light than a witch.
She had again and again heard her praying in the night. Besides, she had
given her money to buy a marble grave-stone for the two children who had
left her house so lonesome.
At last old Tituba took the stand. Her withered face seemed small, and
more shrivelled up than ever; but her eyes, usually sharp and piercing
as those of a rattlesnake, were now hard as steel. Instead of glancing
round the court with her usual vigilance, she kept her gaze fixed on the
judge, as if all her duty lay with him. The prosecutor expected much
from this witness. She had been with Abigail Williams and Elizabeth
Parris from their infancy, and must know better than any other person
the effect which Barbara Stafford had produced upon them. She had helped
to decoct the herbs and roots which Barbara loved to gather, and had
herself drank of this devil's broth, as those pleasant, wholesome drinks
were now denominated. It was these drinks, no doubt, that had shrunk up
her own features, and made her eyes so bloodshot.
Tituba's first words flung the court into consternation. When called
upon to look at the prisoner, she turned her head resolutely another
way, calling out,
"No, no! What has old Tituba to do with the stranger? It was I, old
Tituba, who made the drinks, and it was I who went out in the night for
herbs. Poor old Tituba meant right; but if witches walked by her side,
unseen, and put strange plants into her apron, how was she to know? She
had heard the mandrakes cry out when she tore up their roots; and once
had plucked a plant from the earth out of which the blood dropped red
when her knife cut it, and whispers ran through the forest as she
carried it away. These roots she had been tempted to put into the
household beer just before Elizabeth was taken ill."
"Had Barbara Stafford tempted her?" This was a question put by the
judge. "Had she been near when the mandrake shrieked?"
"No; old Tituba was alone, it was her work altogether. She was the
witch--she had yielded herself to the evil one in her old age--it was
her lips which had given forth the poison that ran through the whole
household. Beguiled by unseen devils, she had talked strange and wicked
things to Abigail Williams, and turned her to stone. The witch poison
had spread from cousin to cousin--from father to child--from parlor to
kitchen, till the minister's household was utterly accursed, and she,
old Tituba, the Indian woman--she, the witch of witches, had done it
all."
When Tituba was dismissed from the stand, she cast one imploring glance
toward the dusky young stranger, who still kept his place near the
judges. When she saw by his look that he seemed satisfied with what she
had done, the fire came back to her eyes, and passing quickly down the
aisle where he stood, she whispered:
"Has Tituba done well?"
The young man did not answer her, but turned another way, apparently
unconscious of her whisper.
While the judges were consulting together, Tituba glided through the
crowd; an Indian who stood near the door, withdrew the blanket from his
shoulders and cast it over her head. Thus disguised after the fashion of
her tribe, she found her way into the forest, thinking, poor old soul,
that in confessing herself a witch, and taking the household curse on
her own head, she had saved the beautiful, strange lady from death.
Alas, it was all in vain! The judges looked upon old Tituba as an
accomplice, not as a principal. Thus, in their minds, Barbara's guilt
was confirmed.