The Witch of Salem; or, Credulity Run Mad Read online

  CHAPTER X.

  CHARLES AND MR. PARRIS.

  Night is the time for rest, How sweet when labors close, To gather round an aching breast The curtain of repose, Stretch the tired limbs, and lay the head Upon our own delightful bed. --Montgomery.

  Jealousy, for the first time, entered the heart of Cora Waters. Blessedis the being free from this curse. The green-eyed monster, unbidden,enters the heart and enthrones himself as ruler of the happiness of theindividual over whom it assumes sway. She heard all that mother and sonsaid, and then watched him as he went out. Then she closed the door ofher apartment and retired to her bedroom.

  It was almost evening, and when Mrs. Stevens informed her that tea wasready, she feigned headache and asked to be excused. It was the heartrather than the head that ached.

  Charles Stevens was gathering in the herds as was the custom for thenight, when he came rather suddenly upon John Louder, returning from theforest.

  "Ho, Charles Stevens, where were you last Lord's Day?" asked Louder.

  "Was I missed?"

  "You were, and I trow the patrol could not find you."

  "I was in Boston."

  "Do you know that Mr. Parris hath begun to cry out against some of thepeople?"

  "I have heard as much, and I think the pastor should be more careful,lest he will do an injustice."

  Louder shook his head and, seating himself on the green bank of abrooklet, answered:

  "Goody Nurse is a witch. She hath grievously tormented me on diversoccasions and in divers ways. Fain would I believe her other but Icannot."

  "John Louder, you are a deceived and deluded man."

  "Nay, nay, Charles, you mock me. I have had her come and sit upon mychest and oppress me greatly with her torments. Have I not been turnedinto a beast and ridden through thorns and briars at night and awoke tofind myself in bed?"

  Charles, laughing, answered:

  "It was the troubled dream from which you awoke."

  "Nay; I found the thorns and briars pricking my hands and legs."

  "Perchance you walked in your sleep."

  "Charles, why seek to deceive me in that way, when I know full well thatwhat I tell you is surely truth? I see with my eyes, I hear with myears, and I feel with my senses. Only night before last, I was riddeninto a field where they partook of a witches' sacrament."

  "And what was it, pray?" asked Charles with a smile of incredulity.

  "The flesh and blood of a murdered victim."

  Charles laughed outright.

  "Nay, nay, Charles, you need not laugh," cried Louder, angrily. "She wasthere, too."

  "Who?"

  "The maid who hath lived at your house. The offspring of a vile player.Behold, I saw her partake of the sacrament."

  Charles Stevens' face alternately paled and flushed as he answered:

  "John Louder, you are the prince of liars, and beware how you repeatyour falsehoods, or I shall crack your skull."

  Louder, who was a coward, as well as superstitious, had a wholesomedread of the stout youth.

  He sprung back a few paces and stammered:

  "No, no, I don't mean any harm. I--I am not saying anything againstyou."

  "John Louder, you are a notorious liar, and I warn you to be careful inthe future how your vile tongue breathes calumny against innocentpeople. Begone!"

  Louder slowly rose and slunk away, and Charles Stevens returned home.The evening air fanned his heated brow, and he sought to cool his angrytemper before he reached home. The silent stars watched the sullen youthwho, pausing at the gate, gazed in his helpless misery on thebroad-faced moon and murmured:

  "How will all this end?"

  It was his usual bedtime when Charles Stevens entered the house, and hisface was calm as a summer sky over which a storm had never swept. Hismother was still plying her wheel, and the heap of wool rolls had grownless and continued to diminish. She asked her son no questions. He satdown near the table, took up a book of psalms and proceeded to read.

  There was one in the next apartment who heard him enter. It was Cora,and, rising, she crouched near the door to listen. Perhaps they wouldsay something more of Adelpha Leisler; but he did not mention her nameagain, and she almost hoped he cared nothing for her now, although hehad confessed that in his boyhood he had looked upon her as his futurewife. Almost every man selects his wife in his early boyhood; but thechild lover seldom becomes the husband. The love of a play-mate, tenderas it may be, is not the love of maturity. Cora strove to consoleherself with these thoughts; but there was another danger that wouldobtrude itself in her way. That was the knowledge that he had not seenAdelpha for years, and she had developed from a child to a beautifulwoman. Long she sat near the door, feeling decidedly guilty at playingthe part of an eavesdropper; but when Charles rose, closed his book andwent to his room, and the mother put away her work, Cora rose and wentto her bed. Despite her sorrow and mental worry, she had sweet dreams.Somebody, who was Charles, appeared to her in light, and she rose withthe sun in her eyes, which at first produced the effect of acontinuation of her dream. Her first thought on coming out of the dreamwas of a smiling nature, and she felt quite reassured. The dream hadbeen so pleasant and sweet; life seemed so peaceful and full of hope;nature smiled so brightly on this holy morn, that she almost forgot thehot words of the pastor and her jealousy of the night before. She beganhoping with all her strength, without knowing why, and suffered from acontraction of the heart. It was a bright day; but the sunbeam was stillnearly horizontal, so she reasoned that it was quite early; but shethought she ought to rise in order to assist Charles' mother in herhousehold duties. She would see Charles himself, feel the warmth of hisglance and hear the music of his voice. No objection was admissible; allwas certain. It was monstrous enough to have suffered the pangs ofjealousy on the night before; but now that the bright dreams andglorious dawn had dispelled these, she felt sure that good news had comeat last. Youth is so constituted, that it quickly wipes its tears away,for it is natural for youth to be happy, while its breath is made up ofhope.

  Cora could not have recalled a single instance in which Charles Stevenshad uttered a word of hope or encouragement to her. Her thoughts seemedto play at hide and seek in her brain, and she was so strangely,peculiarly happy this morning, that she preferred to enjoy the revels ofday-dreams to the realities of life. Leaving her bed, she bathed herface and said her prayers.

  Voices were heard without, and she listened. One was the well belovedvoice of Charles Stevens. He was speaking with some one, whom sherightly guessed had just arrived. The voice of the new-comer was too fardistant for her to recognize it at first: but her eye, glancing throughthe lattice, descried the form of a man coming toward the house. Thattall form, with thin, cadaverous features and stern, unbending eye, wasthe man who had publicly condemned her and held her up to the scorn ofthe whole congregation, because she was the child of a player. Cora didnot hate him, for she was too pure, too good, too heavenly to hate eventhe man who had declared her to be a firebrand of perdition. What washis object this lovely morn? His appearance dispelled all the rosydreams and once more plunged her into that horrible, oppressive gloom,which seemed heavier than lead upon her heart.

  "You are abroad early, this morning, Mr. Parris," Charles answered tothe minister's morning greeting.

  "Not too soon, however," the reverend gentleman answered. "The devildoes not sleep. He is abroad continually, and, verily, one needs mustrise early to be before him and his minions."

  "Where are you going, Mr. Parris?" asked the youth.

  "I am coming here."

  "Your call is early."

  "Not earlier than Satan's. I trow he is here even already and hathabided with you, before I came."

  Charles made no answer to this, for there is no wrath like the wrath ofan angry preacher, whose zeal warps his judgment and makes a fanatic ofhim. Bigoted, tyrannical, haughty and cruel, Parris swooped down on hisenemies with the fury of an eagle.
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  Charles Stevens was a little amazed at the manner of the minister andasked:

  "Is your business with me?"

  "It is."

  "What is it?"

  "It seems best that we converse where there is no danger of beingoverheard, Charles, as what I have to say is of a very grave and seriousnature and concerns your soul's welfare."

  When a bigoted, ambitious zealot becomes interested in the welfare of aperson, that person is in danger.

  The anxious girl, whose face was pressed close to the window latticewatching the men, heard all and turned so pale, that even the warm raysof the sun failed to give the tint and glow of life to the cheek. Shesaw them walk away down the path and go across the brook among the treesand over the distant hill.

  To Charles, it was like making a pilgrimage to some place of evil, theend of which he dreaded. Across the hill, hidden from the town by treesand intervening slope, they paused near the corner of a stone fence,and Mr. Parris leaned against the wall and gazed on Charles in silence.

  "What have you to say, Mr. Parris?" the young man asked, as the cold,gray eye, like a gleam of steel fell upon him. Mr. Parris, in slow andmeasured tones, answered:

  "No man knows until the time comes what depths are within him. To somemen it never comes. Let them rest and be thankful. To me it wasbrought--it was forced upon me. I am despised, misused and abused by theworld for the fact that I stand in the hand of God to do his holy will."

  "You talk strangely, Mr. Parris," said Charles, when the wild-eyedfanatic had finished and turned his haggard face up toward heaven. "Ithink your earnestness and zeal are mistaken."

  "Yes, mistaken by all; but I know the Lord ordains me for this good andholy work, and I will serve my Master, hard as the task may be."

  "Mr. Parris, may we not be mistaken in what constitutes the service ofthe Master?"

  "Aye! Is not the way so plain that a wayfaring man, though a fool,cannot err therein?"

  "Yet, 'they shall put you out of the synagogues; yea, the time comeththat whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.' Thegreat question to decide is which is right. 'Not every one that saithLord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.'"

  "I am right!" cried Mr. Parris, his face flaming with passion.

  "So Melendez believed, when he drenched the soil of Fort Carolinia withthe blood of innocent women and children."

  "Young man, I am the preacher, not you. It is for me to speak and you tolisten. Satan has been unchained, and the air is full of evil spirits."

  "Mr. Parris, I have heard enough. Let me stop you here. It will bebetter for you and better for me. Let me go home."

  "Not yet. The Lord commands, and it must and shall be spoken. I havebeen in torments ever since I stopped short of it before. Look notamazed nor alarmed when I tell you that the day of the wrath of the Lordis coming, and the minions of hell that torment this accursed land willbe gathered into the fires of destruction. Charles, forgive thisearnestness, it is for your sake. It is another of my miseries. I cannotspeak on that subject nor of that subject without stumbling at everysyllable, unless I let go my check and run mad;" and as Charles Stevensgazed into those wild eyes and hollow cheeks, he thought the man mustalready be mad.

  "Let us return home, Mr. Parris. Take another day to think, before yougive expression to what you would say."

  "No, no; you must hear me now! Here is a man driving his cows forth tograze. He will be gone directly. I entreat you let us walk down the roadand return, for what I would say, Charles, must be for your ears alone."

  He yielded to the entreaty. How could he do otherwise, for there couldbe no harm in walking with the pastor? Mr. Parris, among his otheraccomplishments, had the power of dissembling. He could assume a smilingexterior while a devil raged in his heart. After they had gone asidesome distance, and the farmer had passed on with his cows, they returnedto the old stone wall, and Charles waited, very much as a criminalmight, who stood to receive his sentence.

  "You know what I am going to say," the pastor began, his austere faceonce more assuming its terrible expression. "You don't like me, yourmother don't like me, and the congregation is divided, doing all intheir power to dispossess me; but I am right. What other men may meanwhen they use that expression, I cannot tell. What I mean is that I amunder the influence of some tremendous power, which I know is GodAlmighty, Himself, and resist that power I dare not. I may be called afanatic, cruel, mad; but the great and good God who made me ordains mein all things. This power--this spirit--this will, whatever it may be,is the chief motive that moves me. It could draw me to fire; it coulddraw me to water; it could draw me to the rack, as it did martyrs ofold; it could draw me to any death--to anything pleasing, or repulsive;but I am mistaken, misunderstood by people, and the future as well asthe present generation may condemn me in their narrow views as beingdishonest, as being revengeful, as being even bloodthirsty; but,Charles, when God did command Peter to slay, did he refuse? No. If myGod commands me to slay, I will do it, though rivers of blood shallflow----"

  The face of the wild fanatic was terrible to look upon. Charles Stevens,bold as he was, gazing on him in the full light of day, could notrepress a shudder. His thin, cadaverous face, smooth shaven and of anashen hue, was upturned to heaven, and those great, awful eyes seemedgazing on things unlawful for man to see. The long right arm was raisedtoward the sky, and again that deep voice called out:

  "O thou great Jehovah, do but command me, and rivers of blood shallflow----"

  "Mr. Parris!" began Charles, alarmed.

  "Stop! I implore you do not interrupt me, Charles. Wait until, byfasting and prayer and long, solemn meditation on these mysterioussubjects, the Lord has opened your eyes to the invisible world, then youmay judge. If you become weary with long standing, sit down, and I willpour into your ears such proofs that you can no longer deny theexistence of witchcraft."

  Charles felt the strange spell of the fanatic's presence, and he merelybowed his head as a signal for him to proceed. Mr. Parris, in his deepsepulchral voice, continued:[B]

  [Footnote B: Like argument is used by Cotton Mather in his "Invisible World."]

  "Mr. John Higginson, that reverend and excellent person, says that theIndians, which came from far to settle about Mexico, were, in theirprogress to that settlement, under a conduct of a Devil, very strangelyemulating the blessed covenant which God gave Israel in the wilderness.Acosta says that the Devil, in their idol Vitzlipultzli, governed thatmighty nation. He commanded them to leave their country, promising tomake them lords over all the provinces possessed by six other nations ofIndians, and give them a land abounding with all precious things. Theywent forth, carrying their idol with them in a coffer of reeds,supported by four of their principal priests, with whom he stilldiscoursed in secret, revealing to them the successes and accidents oftheir way. He advised them when to march and where to stay, and,without his command, they moved not. The first thing they did whereverthey came, was to erect a tabernacle for their false god, which theyalways set in the midst of their camp, and they placed the ark upon analtar. When, wearied with the pains and fatigues of travel, they talkedof proceeding no further in their journey than a certain pleasant stage,whereto they were arrived, the Devil, in one night, horribly killed theones who had started this talk by pulling out their hearts, and so theypassed on till they came to Mexico.

  "The same Devil, which then thus imitated what was in the church of theOld Testament, now among us, would imitate the affairs of the church inthe New. The witches do say that they form themselves after the mannerof Congregational Churches, and that they have baptism and a supper andofficers among them, abominably resembling those of our Lord. What istheir striking down with a fierce look? What is their making of theafflicted rise with a touch of their hand? What is their transportationthrough the air? What is their travelling in spirit, while their body iscast into a trance? What is their causing cattle to run mad and perish?What is their entering their names in a book, their coming
together fromall parts at the sound of a trumpet, their appearing sometimes clothedwith light and fire upon them, then covering themselves and theirinstruments with invisibility? Are not all these but a blasphemousimitation of certain things recorded about our Saviour, or his prophets,or the saints in the kingdom of God?"

  "Mr. Parris," said Charles, when the fanatic had paused in his wildharangue for want of breath, "you seem in earnest; but you must bear inmind that there is a mistaken zeal----"

  "Hold, Charles, I know what you would say; but God has opened my eyes tothe abominations of witchcraft."

  "So Bishop Mendoza thought, when he ordered the innocent slain. Bewareof false prophets, Mr. Parris. They are more to be dreaded than theprotean devil of which you speak. Be sure that you remove the beam fromyour own eye, before you try to see the mote in the eye of yourbrother."

  The sallow face of the fanatic grew more ghastly than before. His teethgnashed, and his great eyes seemed starting in hatred from his head.Seizing the wrist of Charles with his hand, he clutched it so tightly asto almost make him cry out in pain.

  "Charles, Charles, why persecutest thou me? Have not the scales ofinfidelity fallen from your eyes? Would you deny the power of God?"

  Charles Stevens, by an effort, freed his hand and, with a boldness whichincreased as he spoke, answered:

  "It is not God whom I deny, but man. God is good and just and kind. Hewho, in the name of the Lord, would pervert His holy word is an impostorand blasphemer more base than a thief or an infidel."

  "Charles, beware!"

  "I have listened patiently to you, Mr. Parris. Now listen to me. Wheredo you find in Scripture justification for the charges you lay at thedoors of innocent people such as Goody Nurse, Goody Easty, Goody Cloyseand the poor little maid Cora Waters? What harm have they ever done you,that you, as a Christian man, might not forgive them?"

  "Charles----" interrupted Mr. Parris.

  "Hold, sir; you shall hear me through. Mr. Parris, you must be a man ofsingular shamelessness, craft, ruthlessness and impudence, withal. Youbegan your operations with sharp bargaining about your stipend and sharppractice in appropriating the house and land assigned for the use ofsuccessive pastors. You wrought so diligently, under the stimulus ofyour ambition, that you have got the meeting-house sanctioned as a truechurch and yourself ordained as the first pastor of Salem Village.Because you were opposed by Goody Nurse, her sisters and others, youseek to charge them with offences made punishable under our laws withdeath."

  The sallow face of the pastor grew almost white; but, in a voice offorced calmness, he said:

  "Go on--go on!"

  "No; it is for you to tell, without further discussion, why you broughtme here. Rather let me guess it. You have brought me to say something tome about Cora Waters. You have come to tell me she is a witch, and Itell you it is false."

  The passionate minister glared at the youth for a moment and said:

  "Charles, do you deny that she is the child of a player?"

  "I do not; but what sin follows being the child of a player, or beingeven a player? Nowhere does the Bible condemn the actor for hisprofession; and, if the player be godly, his calling is unobjectionable.Oh, Mr. Parris, eradicate from your heart the deadly poison ofprejudice, and there will appear no harm in that fair, innocent andmuch-abused young maid. She has ever been a child of sorrow and oftears, one who never in thought wronged any one. Tell me that child is awitch? Mr. Parris, it is false!"

  "Then you may both go down--down to the infernal regionstogether!"]

  "Then," cried the pastor, suddenly changing his tone, turning toCharles, and bringing his clenched hand down upon the stone fence with aforce that laid the knuckles raw and bleeding; "then you may both godown--down to the infernal regions together!" The dark look of hatredand revenge with which the words broke from his livid lips, and withwhich he stood holding out his bruised and bleeding hand, made Charlesshudder and turn to go home; but the pastor caught his arm.

  "Mr. Parris, let me go. I have heard quite enough. We understand eachother thoroughly."

  "And you will not give her up?"

  "Never."

  "Verily, she hath bewitched you."

  "I do not believe in witchcraft."

  "What! Do you deny the word of God? Have a care! You are going too farin this. And your mother?"

  "She does not believe in it, either."

  "Charles, why have you and your mother grievously opposed me?" hedemanded, his eyes glaring with hatred and his breath coming hard, whilea white froth, tinged with blood, exuded from his lips.

  "Because you are a bad man, Mr. Parris," cried Charles. "You are asaintly fraud."

  The rage of the pastor knew no bounds. Pointing his wounded and bleedinghand at Charles, he cried:

  "Go! and may the curse of an outraged God go with you!"

  Charles went home.