Bridget Pope was of a thoughtful serious turn--the little Abby the
veriest romp that ever breathed. Bridget was the elder, by about a
year and a half, but she looked five years older than Abby, and was in
every way a remarkable child. Her beauty was like her stature, and both
were above her age; and her aptitude for learning was the talk of all
that knew her. She was a favorite every where and with every body--she
had such a sweet way with her, and was so unlike the other children of
her age--so that when she appeared to merit reproof, as who will not
in the heyday of innocent youth, it was quite impossible to reprove
her, except with a mild voice, or a kind look, or a very affectionate
word or two. She would keep away from her slate and book for whole
days together, and sit for half an hour at a time without moving her
eyes off the page, or turning away her head from the little window of
their school-house, (a log-hut plastered with blue clay in stripes
and patches, and lighted with horn, oiled-paper and isinglass) which
commanded a view of Naumkeag, or Salem village, with a part of the
original woods of North America--huge trees that were found there on
the first arrival of the white man, crowded together and covered with
moss and dropping to pieces of old age; a meeting-house with a short
wooden spire, and the figure of death on the top for a weather-cock, a
multitude of cottages that appeared to be lost in the landscape, and a
broad beautiful approach from the sea.
Speak softly to Bridget Pope at such a time, or look at her with a look
of love, and her quiet eyes would fill, and her childish heart would
run over--it would be impossible to say why. But if you spoke sharply
to her, when her head was at the little window, and her thoughts were
away, nobody knew where, the poor little thing would grow pale and
serious, and look at you with such a look of sorrow--and then go away
and do what she was bid with a gravity that would go to your heart. And
it would require a whole day after such a rebuke to restore the dye of
her sweet lips, or to persuade her that you were not half so angry as
you might have appeared. At every sound of your voice, at every step
that came near, she would catch her breath, and start and look up, as
if she expected something dreadful to happen.
But as for Abigail Paris, the pretty little blue-eyed cousin of Bridget
Pope, there was no dealing with her in that way. If you shook your
finger at her, she would laugh in your face; and if you did it with
a grave air, ten to one but she made you laugh too. If you scolded
her, she would scold you in return but always in such a way that you
could not possibly be angry with her; she would mimic your step with
her little naked feet, or the toss of your head, or the very curb of
your mouth perhaps, while you were trying to terrify her. The little
wretch!--everybody was tired to death of her in half an hour, and yet
everybody was glad to see her again. Such was Abigail Paris, before
Bridget Pope came to live in the house with her, but in the course
of about half a year after that, she was so altered that her very
play-fellows twitted her with being “afeard o’ Bridgee Pope.” She began
to be tidy in her dress, to comb her bright hair, to speak low, to keep
her shoes on her feet, and her stockings from about her heels, and
before a twelvemonth was over, she left off wading in the snow, and
grew very fond of her book.
They were always together now, creeping about under the old
beach-trees, or hunting for hazle nuts, or searching for sun-baked
apples in the short thick grass, or feeding the fish in the smooth
clear sea--Bridget poring over a story that she had picked up, nobody
knows where, and Abigail, whatever the story might be, and although the
water might stand in her eyes at the time, always ready for a roll in
the wet grass, a dip in the salt wave, or a slide from the very top of
the haymow. They rambled about in the great woods together on tip-toe,
holding their breath and saying their prayers at every step; they lay
down together and slept together on the very track of the wolf, or the
she-bear; and if they heard a noise afar off, a howl or a war-whoop,
they crept in among the flowers of the solitary spot and were safe, or
hid themselves in the shadow of trees that were spread out over the
whole sky, or of shrubbery that appeared to cover the whole earth--
Where the wild grape hangs dropping in the shade,
O’er unfledged minstrels that beneath are laid;
Where the scarlet barberry glittered among the sharp green leaves like
threaded bunches of coral,--where at every step the more brilliant
ivory-plumbs or clustered bunch-berries rattled among the withered
herbage and rolled about their feet like a handful of beads,--where
they delighted to go even while they were afraid to speak above a
whisper, and kept fast hold of each other’s hands, every step of
the way. Such was their love, such their companionship, such their
behaviour while oppressed with fear. They were never apart for a day,
till the time of our story; they were together all day and all night,
going to sleep together and waking up together, feeding out of the
same cup, and sleeping in the same bed, year after year.
But just when the preacher was ready to believe that his Father above
had not altogether deserted him--for he was ready to cry out with joy
whenever he looked upon these dear children; they were so good and
so beautiful, and they loved each other so entirely; just when there
appeared to be no evil in his path, no shadow in his way to the grave,
a most alarming change took place in their behavior to each other. He
tried to find out the cause, but they avoided all inquiry. He talked
with them together, he talked with them apart, he tried every means in
his power to know the truth, but all to no purpose. They were afraid
of each other, and that was all that either would say. Both were full
of mischief and appeared to be possessed with a new temper. They were
noisy and spiteful toward each other, and toward every body else. They
were continually hiding away from each other in holes and corners,
and if they were pursued and plucked forth to the light, they were
always found occupied with mischief above their age. Instead of playing
together as they were wont, or sitting together in peace, they would
creep away under the tables and chairs and beds, and behave as if they
were hunted by something which nobody else could see; and they would
lie there by the hour, snapping and snarling at each other, and at
everybody that passed near. They had no longer the look of health, or
of childhood, or of innocence. They were meagre and pale, and their
eyes were fiery, and their fingers were skinny and sharp, and they
delighted in devilish tricks and in outcries yet more devilish. They
would play by themselves in the dead of the night, and shriek with a
preternatural voice, and wake everybody with strange laughter--a sort
of smothered giggle, which would appear to issue from the garret, or
from the top of the house, while they were asleep, or pretending to be
dead asleep in the great room below. They would break out all over in a
fine sweat like the dew on a rose bush, and fall down as if they were
struck to the heart with a knife, while they were on the way to meeting
or school, or when the elders of the church were talking to them and
every eye was fixed on their faces with pity or terror. They would
grow pale as death in a moment, and seem to hear voices in the wind,
and shake as with an ague while standing before a great fire, and look
about on every side with such a piteous look for children, whenever it
thundered or lightened, or whenever the sea roared, that the eyes of
all who saw them would fill with tears. They would creep away backwards
from each other on their hands and feet, or hide their faces in the
lap of the female Indian Tituba, and if the preacher spoke to them,
they would fall into a stupor, and awake with fearful cries and appear
instantly covered all over with marks and spots like those which are
left by pinching or bruising the flesh. They would be struck dumb while
repeating the Lord’s prayer, and all their features would be distorted
with a savage and hateful expression.
The heads of the church were now called together, and a day of general
fasting, humiliation and prayer was appointed, and after that, the best
medical men of the whole country were consulted, the pious and the
gifted, the interpreters of dreams, the soothsayers, and the prophets
of the Lord, every man of power, and every woman of power,--but no
relief was had, no cure, no hope of cure.
Matthew Paris now began to be afraid of his own child. She was no
longer the hope of his heart, the joy his old age, the live miniature
of his buried wife. She was an evil thing--she was what he had no
courage to think of, as he covered his old face and tore his white hair
with a grief that would not be rebuked nor appeased. A new fear fell
upon him, and his knees smote together, and the hair of his flesh rose,
and he saw a spirit, and the spirit said to him look! And he looked,
and lo! the truth appeared to him; for he saw neighbour after neighbour
flying from his path, and all the heads of the church keeping aloof and
whispering together in a low voice. Then knew he that Bridget Pope and
Abigail Paris were bewitched.
A week passed over, a whole week, and every day and every hour they
grew worse and worse, and the solitude in which he lived, more dreadful
to him; but just when there appeared to be no hope left, no chance for
escape, just when he and the few that were still courageous enough to
speak with him, were beginning to despair, and to wish for the speedy
death of the little sufferers, dear as they had been but a few weeks
before to everybody that knew them, a discovery was made which threw
the whole country into a new paroxysm of terror. The savages who had
been for a great while in the habit of going to the house of the
preacher to eat and sleep “without money and without price,” were now
seen to keep aloof and to be more than usually grave; and yet when they
were told of the children’s behaviour, they showed no sort of surprise,
but shook their heads with a smile, and went their way, very much as if
they were prepared for it.
When the preacher heard this, he called up the two Indians before him,
and spoke to Tituba and prayed to know why her people who for years had
been in the habit of lying before his hearth, and eating at his table,
and coming in and going out of his habitation at all hours of the day
and night, were no longer seen to approach his door.
“Tituppa no say--Tituppa no know,” she replied.
But _as_ she replied, the preacher saw her make a sign to Peter Wawpee,
her Sagamore, who began to show his teeth as if he knew something more
than he chose to tell; but before the preacher could rebuke him as he
deserved, or pursue the inquiry with Tituba, his daughter screamed
out and fell upon her face and lay for a long while as if she were
death-struck.
The preacher now bethought him of a new course, and after watching
Tituba and Wawpee for several nights, became satisfied from what he
saw, that she was a woman of diabolical power. A part of what he
saw, he was afraid even to speak of; but he declared on oath before
the judges, that he had seen sights, and heard noises that took away
his bodily strength, his hearing and his breath for a time; that for
nearly five weeks no one of her tribe, nor of Wawpee’s tribe had slept
upon his hearth, or eaten of his bread, or lifted the latch of his
door either by night or by day; that notwithstanding this, the very
night before, as he went by the grave-yard where his poor wife lay,
he heard the whispering of a multitude; that having no fear in such a
place, he made a search; and that after a long while he found his help
Tituba concealed in the bushes, that he said nothing but went his way,
satisfied in his own soul however that the voices he heard were the
voices of her tribe; and that after the moon rose he saw her employed
with a great black Shadow on the rock of death, where as every body
knew, sacrifices had been offered up in other days by another people to
the god of the Pagan--the deity of the savage--employed in a way that
made him shiver with fright where he stood; for between her and the
huge black shadow there lay what he knew to be the dead body of his
own dear child stretched out under the awful trees--her image rather,
for _she_ was at home and abed and asleep at the time. He would have
spoken to it if he could--for he saw what he believed to be the shape
of his wife; he would have screamed for help if he could, but he could
not get his breath, and that was the last he knew; for when he came
to himself he was lying in his own bed, and Tituba was sitting by his
side with a cup of broth in her hand which he took care to throw away
the moment her back was turned; for she was a creature of extraordinary
art, and would have persuaded him that he had never been out of his bed
for the whole day.
The judges immediately issued a warrant for Tituba and Wawpee, both of
whom were hurried off to jail, and after a few days of proper inquiry,
by torture, she was put upon trial for witchcraft. Being sorely
pressed by the word of the preacher and by the testimony of Bridget
Pope and Abigail Paris, who with two more afflicted children (for the
mischief had spread now in every quarter) charged her and Sarah Good
with appearing to them at all hours, and in all places, by day and
by night, when they were awake and when they were asleep, and with
tormenting their flesh. Tituba pleaded guilty and confessed before the
judges and the people that the poor children spoke true, that she was
indeed a witch, and that, with several of her sister witches of great
power--among whom was mother Good, a miserable woman who lived a great
way off, nobody knew where--and passed the greater part of her time by
the sea-side, nobody knew how, she had been persuaded by the black man
to pursue and worry and vex them. But the words were hardly out of her
mouth before she herself was taken with a fit, which lasted so long
that the judges believed her to be dead. She was lifted up and carried
out into the air; but though she recovered her speech and her strength
in a little time, she was altered in her looks from that day to the day
of her death.
But as to mother Good, when they brought her up for trial, she would
neither confess to the charge nor pray the court for mercy; but she
stood up and mocked the jury and the people, and reproved the judges
for hearkening to a body of accusers who were collected from all parts
of the country, were of all ages, and swore to facts, which if they
ever occurred at all, had occurred years and years before--facts which
it would have been impossible for her to contradict, even though they
had all been, as a large part of them obviously were, the growth of
mistake or of superstitious dread. Her behavior was full of courage
during the trial; and after the trial was over, and up to the last hour
and last breath of her life, it was the same.
You are a liar! said she to a man who called her a witch to her teeth,
and would have persuaded her to confess and live. You are a liar, as
God is my judge, Mike! I am no more a witch than you are a wizard, and
you know it Mike, though you be so glib at prayer; and if you take away
my life, I tell you now that you and yours, and the people here, and
the judges and the elders who are now thirsting for my blood shall rue
the work of this day, forever and ever, in sackcloth and ashes; and I
tell you further as Elizabeth Hutchinson told you, Ah ha! ... how do
you like the sound of that name, Judges? You begin to be afraid I see;
you are all quiet enough now!... But I say to you nevertheless, and
I say to you here, even here, with my last breath, as Mary Dyer said
to you with her last breath, and as poor Elizabeth Hutchinson said to
you with hers, if you take away my life, the wrath of God shall pursue
you!--you and yours!--forever and ever! Ye are wise men that I see,
and mighty in faith, and ye should be able with such faith to make the
deep boil like a pot, as they swore to you I did, to remove mountains,
yea to shake the whole earth by a word--mighty in faith or how could
you have swallowed the story of that knife-blade, or the story of the
sheet? Very wise are you, and holy and fixed in your faith, or how
could you have borne with the speech of that bold man, who appeared to
you in court, and stood face to face before you, when you believed him
to be afar off or lying at the bottom of the sea, and would not suffer
you to take away the life even of such a poor unhappy old creature as
I am, without reproving you as if he had authority from the Judge of
judges and the King of kings to stay you in your faith!
Poor soul but I do pity thee! whispered a man who stood near with a
coiled rope in one hand and a drawn sword in the other. It was the
high-sheriff.
Her eyes filled and her voice faltered for the first time, when she
heard this, and she put forth her hand with a smile, and assisted him
in preparing the rope, saying as the cart stopped under the large beam,
Poor soul indeed!--You are too soft-hearted for your office, and of the
two, you are more to be pitied than the poor old woman you are a-going
to choke.
Mighty in faith she continued, as the high-sheriff drew forth a watch
and held it up for her to see that she had but a few moments to live.
I address myself to you, ye Judges of Israel! and to you ye teachers
of truth! Believe ye that a mortal woman of my age, with a rope about
her neck, hath power to prophesy? If ye do, give ear to my speech and
remember my words. For death, ye shall have death! For blood, ye shall
have blood--blood on the earth! blood in the sky! blood in the waters!
Ye shall drink blood and breathe blood, you and yours, for the work of
this day!
Woman, woman! we pray thee to forbear! cried a voice from afar off.
I shall not forbear, Cotton Mather--it is your voice that I hear. But
for you and such as you, miserable men that ye are, we should now be
happy and at peace one with another. I shall not forbear--why should I?
What have I done that I may not speak to the few that love me before we
are parted by death?
Be prepared woman--if you _will_ die, for the clock is about to strike
said another voice.
Be prepared, sayest thou? William Phips, for I know the sound of thy
voice too, thou hard-hearted miserable man! Be prepared, sayest thou?
Behold----stretching forth her arms to the sky, and lifting herself
up and speaking so that she was heard of the people on the house-tops
afar off, Lo! I am ready! Be ye also ready, for now!--now!--even while
I speak to you, he is preparing to reward both my accusers and my
judges----.
He!--who!
Who, brother Joseph? said somebody in the crowd.
Why the Father of lies to be sure! what a question for you to ask,
after having been of the jury!
Thou scoffer!--
Paul! Paul, beware!--
Hark--what’s that! Lord have mercy upon us!
The Lord have mercy upon us! cried the people, giving way on every
side, without knowing why, and looking toward the high-sea, and holding
their breath.
Pho, pho, said the scoffer, a grey-haired man who stood leaning over
his crutch with eyes full of pity and sorrow, pho, pho, the noise that
you hear is only the noise of the tide.
Nay, nay, Elder Smith, nay, nay, said an associate of the speaker. If
it is only the noise of the tide, why have we not heard it before? and
why do we not hear it now? just now, when the witch is about to be--
True ... true ... it may not be the Evil one, after all.
The Evil one, Joe Libby! No, no! it is God himself, our Father above!
cried the witch, with a loud voice, waving her arms upward, and fixing
her eye upon a group of two or three individuals who stood aloof,
decorated with the badges of authority. Our Father above, I say! The
Governor of governors, and the Judge of judges!... The cart began to
move here.... _He_ will reward you for the work of this day! He will
refresh you with blood for it! and you too Jerry Pope, and you too
Micajah Noyes, and you too Job Smith, and you ... and you ... and
you....
Yea of a truth! cried a woman who stood apart from the people with her
hands locked and her eyes fixed upon the chief-judge. It was Rachel
Dyer, the grandchild of Mary Dyer. Yea of a truth! for the Lord will
not hold him guiltless that spilleth his brother’s blood, or taketh his
sister’s life by the law--and her speech was followed by a shriek from
every hill-top and every house-top, and from every tree and every rock
within sight of the place, and the cart moved away, and the body of the
poor old creature swung to and fro in the convulsions of death.