Enough--enough--cried Burroughs, on finding Matthew Paris so disturbed
in his intellect--enough--there is no hope now, Rachel. The father
himself would be no witness now, though he had been told by our
witnesses upon their death-bed, while they expected to die, just what,
if it could be shown here, would be a matter of life and death to us.
But still, before I give up, I should like to know the meaning of that
rule of evidence you spoke of the other day, which would appear to make
it necessary for me to produce only the best evidence which the nature
of the case admits of. We have done that here ... a rule which being
interpreted by the men of the law is said to be this ... that we are
to give such evidence only, as that none better may appear to be left
behind--we have done that now--
We are weary of this--what have you to say to the charge made against
you by the apparition of your wife? Before you reply however, it is our
duty to apprise you, that whatever you may happen to say in your own
favor will go for nothing--
Nevertheless I am ready to reply.
--We do not seek to entrap you--
So I perceive. Repeat the charge.
You are charged with having--what ho, there!--lights--lights--more
lights--
Lights--more lights! cried the people, what, ho there! How dark it
grows--
And how chill the air is--
Ay ... and quiet as the grave.
--You are charged I say, with having caused the death of your two wives
... who have partly promised, if you deny the charge, to confront you
here.
The people began to press backward from each other, and to gasp for
breath.
You have only to say yes or no, and abide the proof.
Indeed--is that all?
Yes--all--
Then ... behold me. As he spoke, he threw up his arms, and walked forth
into a broad clear space before the bench, where every body could hear
and see him, and was about to address the jury, when he was interrupted
by a crash of thunder that shook the whole house, and appeared to shake
the whole earth. A dreadful outcry ensued, with flash after flash of
lightning and peal after peal of thunder, and the people dropped upon
their knees half blinded with light and half crazy with terror; and
covered their faces and shrieked with consternation.
Why, what are ye afraid of judges? And you, ye people--cried the
prisoner, that ye cover your faces, and fall down with fear ... so that
if I would, I might escape.
Look to the prisoner there ... look to the prisoner.
--Ye do all this, ye that have power to judge me, while I ... I the
accused man ... I neither skulk nor cower. I stand up ... I alone of
all this great multitude who are gathered together to see me perish for
my sins ... the Jonah of this their day of trouble and heavy sorrow.
Not alone, said Rachel Dyer, moving up to the bar.
If not altogether alone, alone but for thee, thou most heroic woman....
O, that they knew thy worth!... And yet these people who are quaking
with terror on every side of us, bowed down with mortal fear at the
voice of the Lord in the Sky, it is they that presume to deal with us,
who are not afraid of our Father, nor scared by the flashing of his
countenance, for life and for death--
Yea George--
Be it so--
Prisoner at the bar--you are trifling with the court.... You have not
answered the charge.
Have I not!--well then--I prepare to answer it now. I swear that I
loved them that I have buried there--there!--loved them with a love
passing all that I ever heard of, or read of. I swear too that I
nourished and comforted and ministered to the dear creatures, who, ye
are told, have come out of the earth to destroy me--even me--_me_,
their husband, their lover, and the father of their children! I swear
too--but why continue the terrible outrage? Let my accusers appear!
Let them walk up, if they will, out of their graves!--their graves are
before me. I am not afraid--I shall not be afraid--so long as they
wear the blessed shape, or the blessed features of them that have
disappeared from their bridal chamber, with a----
He was interrupted by great noises and shrieks that were enough to
raise the dead--noises from every part of the grave-yard--shrieks
from people afar off in the wood, shrieks from the multitude on the
outside of the house--and shrieks from the sea-shore; and immediately
certain of the accusers fell down as if they saw something approach;
and several that were on the outside of the meeting-house came rushing
in with a fearful outcry, saying that a shed which had been built up
over a part of the burial-ground was crowded with strange faces, and
with awful shapes, and that among them were the two dead wives of the
prisoner.
There they go--there they go! screamed other voices outside the door;
and immediately the cry was repeated by the accusers who were within
the house--all shrieking together. “Here they come!--here they
come!--here they come!”--And Judith Hubbard looking up and uncovering
her face, about which her cloak had been gathered in the first hurry of
her distraction, declared that the last wife of Burroughs, on whom her
eyes were fixed at the time, was then actually standing before him and
looking him in the face, “O, with such a look--so calm, so piteous and
so terrible!”
After the uproar had abated in some degree, the judges who were huddled
together, as far as they could possibly get from the crowd below,
ordered up three more of the witnesses, and were about to speak to
them, when Burroughs happening to turn that way also, they cried out
as if they were stabbed with a knife, and fell upon the floor at their
whole length and were speechless.
Whereupon the chief judge, turning toward him, asked him what hindered
these poor people from giving their testimony.
I do not know said Burroughs, who began to give way himself now, with a
convulsion of the heart, before the tremendous array of testimony and
weight of delusion; to fear that of a truth preternatural shapes were
about him, and that the witnesses were over-persuaded by irresistible
power, though he knew himself to be no party in the exercise of such
power. I do not know, said he: I am utterly confounded by their
behaviour. It may be the devil.
Ah--and why is the devil so loath to have testimony borne against _you_?
“Which query,” says a writer who was there at the time, and saw the
look of triumph which appeared in the faces of the whole bench, “did
cast Burroughs into very great confusion.”
And well it might, for he was weighed to the earth, and he knew that
whatever he said, and whatever he did; and whether he spoke with
promptitude or with hesitation; whether he showed or did not show a
sign of dismay, everything would be, and _was_ regarded by the judges,
and the jury, and the people, as further corroboration of his turpitude.
Here the trial ended. Here the minds of the jury were made up; and
although he grew collected at last, and arose and spoke in a way that
made everybody about him weep and very bitterly too, for what they
called the overthrow of a mind of great wisdom and beauty and power;
and although he gave up to the judges a written argument of amazing
ingenuity and vigor which is yet preserved in the records of that
people, wherein he mocked at their faith in witchcraft, and foretold
the grief and the shame, the trouble and the reproach that were to
follow to them that were so busy in the work of death; yet--yet--so
impressed were the twelve, by the scene that had occurred before their
faces, that they found him guilty; and as if the judges were afraid
of a rescue from the powers of the air, they gave judgment of death
upon him before they left the bench, and contrary to their established
practice, ordered him to be executed on the morrow.
On the morrow? said he, with a firm steady eye and a clear tone, though
his lip quivered as he spoke. Will ye afford me no time to prepare?
We would not that the body and soul both perish; and we therefore urge
you to be diligent in the work brother, very diligent for the little
time that is now left to make your calling and election sure. Be ready
for the afternoon of the morrow.
Hitherto the prisoner at the bar had shown little or no emotion;
hitherto he had argued and looked as if he did not believe the jury nor
the judges capable of doing what they had now done, nor the multitude
that knew him, capable of enduring it. Hitherto he had been as it were
a spectator of the terrible farce, with no concern for the issue; but
now ... now ... all eyes were rivetted upon him with fear, all thoughts
with alarm; for though he stood up as before, and made no sort of reply
to the judges, and bore the wracking of the heavy irons with which they
were preparing to load him, as if he neither felt nor saw them; yet
was there a something in his look which made the officers of the court
unsheathe their swords, and lift up their axes, and the people who were
occupied about him, keep as far out of his reach as they possibly could.
Yet he neither moved nor spoke, till he saw the women crowding up to a
part of the house where he had seen Elizabeth Dyer, and stoop as if she
that had been kneeling there a few moments before, lay very low, and
lift her up as if she had no life in her, and carry her away, guarded
by men with pikes, and with swords and with huge firelocks. Then he
_was_ moved--and his chains were felt for the first time, and he would
have called out for a breath of air--prayed for a drop of water to save
a life more precious by far than his--but before he could open his
mouth so as to make himself heard, he saw Rachel Dyer pressing up to
the bar of death, and heard the judges call out to the high-sheriff and
his man to guard the door, and look to the prisoner.
He will get away if you turn your head, Mr. sheriff, said one of the
judges.
That he will, added a witness, that he will! if you don’t look sharp,
as sure as my name is Peter P.
Watch and pray--watch and pray--added another.
Burroughs looked up to the bench with surprise, then at the people,
who were watching every motion of his body as if they expected him to
tear away the ponderous fetters and walk forth as free as the wind of
the desert, and then at the blacksmith who stood near with his hammer
uplifted in the air; and then his chest heaved and his chains shook,
and the people hurried away from his path, and tumbled over each other
in their eagerness to escape, and the chief-judge cried out again to
the officer to look to the door and be prepared for a rescue.
Let _me_ be tried now! I entreat thee, said Rachel Dyer, throwing up
her locked-hands before Judge Winthrop, and speaking as if she was
about to plead not for death but for life. Let me be tried now, I
beseech thee.
Now.--
Yea--now!--before the maiden is brought back to life. O let her be at
peace, ye men of power, till I have a--have a--
She gathered herself up now with a strong effort, and spoke with
deliberate firmness....
----Till I have gone through the work which is appointed for me by the
twelve that I see there--
Be it so.--I say, Mr. high-sheriff!
Well, Mr. judge Winthrop?
This way, this way; you’ll be so good as to remove a--a--a--(Looking at
Burroughs who stood leaning against the wall)--you are to be a--a--(in
a whisper of authority)--you are to be careful of what you do--a very
hard case, very--very--
Yes judge--
Well, well--well, well--why don’t ye do as I bid you?
What am I to do?
What are you to do ... remove the prisoner--poor soul.
Which prisoner?
Why that are ... poh poh, poh--(pointing to Burroughs.)
Where to?
Where to Sir?--Take him away; away with him--pretty chap you are to
be sure, not to know where to take a man to, after its all over with
him--poh, poh, poh.
I say, Mr. Judge, none o’ that now--
Take the man away Sir. Do as you are bid.
Who--me--cried Burroughs, waking up from his fit of apathy and looking
about on every side.
Away with him.
Judges--judges--hear me. Let me remain, I pray you, cried he, setting
his back to the wall and lifting his loaded arms high up in the
air--suffer me to stay here till the jury have said whether or no this
heroic woman is worthy of death--I do beseech you!
Take him away, I tell you--what are ye afraid of?
Judges--men--I would that ye would have mercy, not on me, but on the
people about me. I would that ye would suffer me to tarry here--in
fetters--till the jury have given their verdict on Rachel Dyer. Suffer
me to do so, I beseech you, and I will go away then, I swear to you,
whithersoever it may please you, like a lamb to the slaughter. I swear
this to you before God!--but, so help me God, I will not be carried
away alive before. I will not stir, nor be stirred while I have power
to lift my arms, or to do what you now see me do----
As he spoke, he lifted up his arms in the air--up--up, as high as he
could reach, standing on tip-toe the while; and brought them down with
such force, loaded as they were, that he doubled the iron guard which
kept him in the box, and shattered the heavy door from the top to the
bottom.
--Behold--shorn though I be of my youth, betrayed though I have been,
while I forgot where I was, I do not lack power. Now bid your people
tear me away if you have courage! For lo, my feet are upon the
foundations of your strength ... and by Jehovah--the God of the strong
man of other days!--I’ll not be dragged off till I know the fate of the
giantess before you.
We shall see--cut him down officer--cut him down!
Very well. Come thou near enough to cut me down, officer, and I’ll
undertake for thee.
Judges--how little ye know of that man’s power--why not suffer him to
stay? cried Rachel Dyer. Why will ye provoke it? On your heads be the
issue, if ye drive your ministers to the toil! on yours their blood, if
they approach him!
The sheriff hung back--and the judges, after consulting together,
told Burroughs he might stay, and ordered the trial of the women to
proceed.