The Last Witness
In answer to these summons, a child came slowly up the aisle, clinging to
his mother’s skirts. His thin little legs tottered under him; his face
was peaked and wan, and he hid it in his mother’s dress. When the Beadle
sought to lift him, he wept bitterly, and had to be taken by force, and
placed upon the platform where the accused was seated. The poor baby
gasped for breath. His face grew rigid, his lips purple. His tiny hands,
which were like bird’s claws, so thin and emaciated were they, clinched,
and he fell in convulsions.
An angry murmur from the people was instantly succeeded by the deepest
silence.
The magistrates and people breathlessly awaited the result of the coming
experiment.
The supreme test in all cases of witchery was to bring the victim into
court, when he would generally fall into convulsions, or scream with
agony on beholding the accused.
The Beadle and his assistants would then conduct or carry the sufferer to
the prisoner, who was bidden by the judge to put forth his hand and touch
the flesh of the afflicted one. Instantly the convulsions and supposed
diabolical effects would cease, the malignant fluid passing back, like a
magnetic current, into the body of the witch.
Tenderly the Beadle lifted the small convulsed form of Ebenezer Gibbs and
laid it at the prisoner’s feet.
“Deliverance Wentworth,” said the chief justice, “you are bidden by the
court to touch the body of your victim, that the malignant fluid, with
which you have so diabolically afflicted him, may return into your own
body. Again I pray God in His justice discover you if you be guilty.”
Despite the severity of her rule, the little assistant teacher of the
Dame School had a most tender heart for her tiny scholars. She bent now
and lifted this youngest of her pupils into her lap.
“Oh, Ebenezer,” she cried, stricken with remorse, “I no meant to rap your
pate so hard as to make ye go daffy.”
Doubtless the familiar voice pierced to the child’s benumbed faculties,
for he was seen to stir in her arms.
“Ebenezer,” murmured the little maid, “do ye no love me, that ye will no
open your eyes and look at me? Why, I be no witch, Ebenezer. Open your
eyes and see. I will give ye a big sugar-plum and ye will.”
The beloved voice touched the estranged child-heart. Perhaps the poor,
stricken baby believed himself again at his knitting and primer-lesson at
the Dame School. In the awed silence he was seen to raise himself in the
prisoner’s arms and smile. With an inarticulate, cooing sound, he stroked
her cheek with his little hand. The little maid spoke in playful chiding.
Suddenly a weak gurgle of laughter smote the strained hearing of the
people.
“Ye see, ye see I be no witch,” cried Deliverance, raising her head, “ye
see he be no afeared o’ me.”
But as soon as the words left her lips, she shrank and cowered, for she
realized that the test of witchery had succeeded, that she was condemned.
From her suddenly limp and helpless arms the Beadle took the child and
returned it to its mother. And from that hour it was observed that little
Ebenezer Gibbs regained strength.
The prisoner’s arms were then bound behind her that she might not touch
any one else.
After quiet had been restored, and the excitement at this direct proof
of the prisoner’s guilt had been quelled, the young minister, who had
entered at a late hour of the trial, rose and addressed the jury. He was
none other than the famous Cotton Mather, of Boston Town, being then
about thirty years old and in the height of his power. He had journeyed
thither, he said, especially to be present at this trial, inasmuch as
he had heard that some doubters had protested that the prisoner being
young and a maiden, it was a cruel deed to bring her to trial, as if it
had not been proven unto the people, yea, unto these very doubters, that
the Devil, in his serpent cunning, often takes possession of seemingly
innocent persons.
“Atheism,” he said, tapping his Bible, “is begun in Sadducism, and those
that dare not openly say, ‘There is no God,’ content themselves for a
fair step and introduction thereto by denying there are witches. You have
seen how this poor child had his grievous torment relieved as soon as the
prisoner touched him. Yet you are wrought upon in your weak hearts by her
round cheek and tender years, whereas if the prisoner had been an hag,
you would have cried out upon her. Have you not been told this present
assault of evil spirits is a particular defiance unto you and your
ministers? Especially against New England is Satan waging war, because
of its greater godliness. For the same reason it has been observed that
demons, having much spitred against God’s house, do seek to demolish
churches during thunder-storms. Of this you have had terrible experience
in the incident of this prisoner. You know how hundreds of poor people
have been seized with supernatural torture, many scalded with invisible
brimstone, some with pins stuck in them, which have been withdrawn and
placed in a bottle, that you all may have witness thereof. Yea, with mine
own eyes have I seen poor children made to fly like geese, but just their
toes touching now and then upon the ground, sometimes not once in twenty
feet, their arms flapping like wings!”
The court-house was very warm this June morning. Cotton Mather paused to
wipe the perspiration from his brow. As he returned his kerchief to his
pocket his glance rested momentarily on the prisoner.
For the first time he realized her youth. He noted her hair had a golden
and innocent shining like the hair of a little child.
“Surely,” he spoke aloud, yet more to himself than to the people, “the
Devil does indeed take on at times the appearance of a very angel of
light!”
He felt a sudden stirring of sympathy for those weak natures wrought upon
by “a round cheek and tender years.” The consciousness of this leaning in
himself inspired him to greater vehemence.
“The conviction is most earnestly forced upon me that God has made of
this especial case a very trial of faith, lest we embrace Satan when he
appears to us in goodly disguise, and persecute him only when he puts
on the semblance of an old hag or a middle-aged person. Yet, while God
has thus far accorded the most exquisite success to our endeavour to
defeat these horrid witchcrafts, there is need of much caution lest the
Devil outwit us, so that we most miserably convict the innocent and
set the guilty free. Now, the prisoner being young, meseemeth she was,
perchance, more foolish than wicked. And when I reflect that men of much
strength and hearty women have confessed that the Black man did tender a
book unto them, soliciting them to enter into a league with his Master,
and when they refused this abominable spectre, did summon his demons
to torture these poor people, until by reason of their weak flesh, but
against their real desires, they signed themselves to be the servants
of the Devil forever,—and, I repeat, that when I reflect on this, that
they who were hearty and of mature age could not withstand the torture of
being twisted and pricked and pulled, and scalded with burning brimstone,
how much less could a weak, tender maid resist their evil assaults? And
I trust that my poor prayers for her salvation will not be refused, but
that she will confess and save her soul.”
He turned his earnest glance upon Deliverance and, perceiving she was in
great fear, he spoke to her gently, bidding her cast off all dread of the
Devil, abiding rather in the love of God, and thus strong in the armour
of light, make her confession.
But the little maid was too stupefied by terror to gather much
intelligent meaning from his words, and she stared helplessly at him as
if stricken dumb.
At her continued, and to him, stubborn, silence, his patience vanished.
“Then are you indeed obstinate and of hard heart, and the Lord has cast
you off,” he cried. He turned to the judges with an impassioned gesture.
“What better proof could you have that the Devil would indeed beguile
the court itself by a fair outward show? Behold a very Sadducee! See in
what dire need we stand to permit no false compassion to move us, lest
by not proceeding with unwavering justice in this witchery business we
work against the very cause of Christ. Still, while I would thus caution
you not to let one witch go free, meseemeth it is yet worth while to
consider other punishment than by halter or burning. I have lately been
impressed by a Vision from the Invisible World, that it would be pleasing
to the Lord to have the lesser criminals punished in a mortifying public
fashion until they renounce the Devil. I am apt to think there is some
substantial merit in this peculiar recommendation.”
A ray of hope was in these last words for the prisoner.
Deliverance raised her head eagerly. A lesser punishment! Then she
would not be hanged. Oh, what a blessed salvation that she would be
placed only in the stocks, or made to stand in a public place until she
should confess! And it flashed through her mind that she could delay her
confession from day to day until the Cavalier should return.
Cotton Mather caught her sudden changed expression.
The wan little face with its wide, uplifted eyes and half parted lips
acquired a fearful significance. That transfiguring illumination of hope
upon her face was to him the phosphorescent playing of diabolical lights.
His compassion vanished. He now saw her only as a subtle instrument of
the Devil’s to defeat the ministers and the Church. He shuddered at the
train of miserable consequences to which his pity might have opened the
door, had not the mercy of God showed him his error in time.
“But when you have catched a witch of more than ordinary devilment,” he
cried, striking the palm of one hand with his clinched fist, “and who, by
a fair and most subtle showing, would betray the cause of Christ to her
Master, let no weak pity unnerve you, but have at her and hang her, lest
but one such witch left in the land acquire power to wreak untold evil
and undo all we have done.”
Still once again did his deeply concerned gaze seek the prisoner’s face,
hoping to behold therein some sign of softening.
Beholding it not he sighed heavily. He would willingly have given his
life to save her soul to the good of God and to the glory of his own
self-immolation.
“I become more and more convinced that my failure to bring this miserable
maid to confession, and indeed the whole assault of the Evil Angels
upon the country,” he continued, using those words which have been
generally accepted as a revelation of his marvellous credulity and
self-righteousness, “were intended by Hell as a particular defiance unto
my poor endeavours to bring the souls of men unto heaven. Yet will I wage
personal war with Satan to drive him from the land.”
He raised his eyes, a light of exaltation sweeping over his face.
“And in God’s own appointed time,” he cried in a voice that quivered with
emotion, “His Peace will again descend upon this fair and gracious land,
and we shall be at rest from persecution.”
Whatever of overweening vanity his words expressed, none present seeing
his enraptured face might have judged him harshly.
No infatuated self-complacency alone prompted his words, but rather his
earnest conviction that he was indeed the instrument of God, and believed
himself by reason of his long fastings and prayer, more than any person
he knew, in direct communion with the invisible world.
And if his vanity and self-sufficiency held many from loving him, there
were few who did not involuntarily do him honour.
Having finished he sat down, laid his Bible on his knee, and folded his
arms across his breast as heretofore. None, looking at him then as he sat
facing the people, his chest puffed out with incomparable pride, young,
with every sign of piety, withal a famous scholar, and possessed of
exceptional personal comeliness, saw how the shadow of the future already
touched him, when for his honest zeal in persecuting witches he should
be an object of insult and ridicule in Boston Town, people naming their
negroes Cotton Mather after him.
During his speech, Deliverance had at first listened eagerly, but, as he
continued, her head sank on her breast and hope vanished. Dimly, as in
a dream, she heard the judges’ voices, the whispering of the people. At
last, as a voice speaking a great distance off, she heard her name spoken.
“Deliverance Wentworth,” said Chief Justice Stoughton, “you are acquaint
with the law. If any man or woman be a witch and hath a familiar spirit,
or hath consulted with one, he or she shall be put to death. You have by
full and fair trial been proven a witch and found guilty in the extreme.
Yet the court will shew mercy unto you, if you will heartily, and with a
contrite heart, confess that you sinned through weakness, and repent that
you did transfer allegiance from God to the Devil.”
“I be no witch,” cried Deliverance, huskily, “I be no witch. There be
another judgment.”
The tears dropped from her eyes into her lap and the sweat rolled down
her face. But she could not wipe them away, her arms being bound behind
her.
The judge nearest her, he who wore his natural hair and the black cap,
was moved to compassion. He leant forward, and with his kerchief wiped
the tears and sweat from her face.
“You poor and pitiful child,” he said, “estranged from God by reason of
your great sin, confess, confess, while there is yet time, lest you be
hanged in sin and your soul condemned to eternal burning.”
Deliverance comprehended but the merciful act and not the exhortation.
She looked at him with the terror and entreaty of a last appeal in her
eyes, but was powerless to speak.