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"Mistress Rachel, half an hour's up. I except for officers, the ranks presented

must send you out."

Rachel bent down her face toward Martha. "Don't kiss me," said the woman. "It may bring you harm."

Rachel obeyed, but her intention had been observed by the jailer, who was, consequently, much scandalized, and refused to let her see Elder Burroughs. On reaching the open air, she found herself so much inclined to cry, that she determined to go straight home, and have it out in the low-spirited society of sympathizing Margaret Jacobs. What happened to her there, and whether she cried much or little, will be related in what the Italians call a momentino; for at present the connection of circumstances obliges us to look around after her father, and see whether he is taking any steps in opposition to Juggernaut.

As we already know, Master More had gone a-fishing, in company with Giles Cory, the member of the opposition from Salem village; one paddling the whitewood canoe up or down the sluggish waters of the North river; the other drawing in whatever scaly simpletons chose to hook themselves for the sake of a mouthful of earth-worm or muscle. Fish were still very plenty and very foolish around Salem, so that, in a couple of hours, the bottom of the little bark was strewn with gasping perch, pickerel, plaice, and catfish. The two piscators then paddled down to the village, and exchanged their booty at Deacon Bowson's store for some small matters in the way of groceries. They were returning to their canoe, when the roll of a drum fell on their ears, and they saw the Salem oldtroop, led by Captain Redford, marching toward the training-field, or, as it is now called, Washington square. Every body loved to look at soldiers in those days, and More proposed that they should turn aside to witness a drill. They were soon in Training-field-an open space, nearly triangular in shape, bounded here and there by clumps of bushes, and further diversified by two small ponds, fringed with bulrushes. The company was already drawn up in line, on the northwestern side of the triangle, facing the many-gabled house. of Elder Noyse. It consisted of about forty men, sturdy and respectable householders, some of them gray-haired, and nearly all, no doubt, church-members. Uniforms being unknown as yet,

a varied aspect of cocked hats and broad brims, coats and small-clothes, of all shapes and complexions. The captain and lieutenants alone wore scarlet coats, yellow breeches of doeskin, and boots spreading out at the top like mighty tunnels. The arms were as heterogeneous as the raiment; many of the privates carried swords as well as fire-arms; some had dwarf blunderbusses, and some duck-guns long enough for lightning-rods. Around this unconformable legion stood, lounged, scrambled, shouted, and giggled a horde of delighted boys, Indians, and negroes. The Indians were a dirty set, dressed in shocking bad clothes; sauntering, listless, taciturn, and scarcely possessed of even the dignity of laziness. The darkies were slaves, mostly brought from Africa, and, therefore, magnificent in all the brilliant contrast of their unadulterated ivory and ebony.

The present attitude of the troop, with drums rolling and arms presented, was evidently in compliment to the minister; for he presently appeared at his front-door, and, taking off his hat, bowed three times very majestically. The company then shouldered arms, broke into ranks, wheeled and marched away toward Main street amid a tremendous outcry from that much-abused sheep-skin. More and Cory also left the common, and set off briskly in the direction of the North river. Suddenly, the farmer caught his comrade by the arm, and pointed at an Indian, dressed in ragged English clothes of a clerical cut and color, who had separated himself from the crowd of spectators, and was making for the parsonage. "That is John Injun," said Cory, "Parris's servant. He's got a letter, or message, or suthing for Noyse. Wait a bit, till he comes out. I'd like to whisper a word in that fellow's ear."

He walked to a hazel thicket, cut three or four stout switches, trimmed off the leaves, and laid the wands down in the shade. More laughed knowingly, and the two waited a few minutes. Presently the lazy, lounging, demi-savage reappeared at the door, where he scrutinized the exterior of a letter, and then, putting it in his coat-pocket, sauntered down to the street. Cory stepped forward in view of him, whistled sharply and beckoned; upon which John cast a glance at the windows of the parsonage

to see that he was not watched; and, observing no faces at the lozenge panes, he placed himself, with three or four extraordinary bounds, by the side of the two colonists. He addressed More with great respect, calling him sagamore: a title which all the Indians of the vicinity had agreed to bestow upon our mighty hunter; partly, perhaps, because of its punning resemblance to his name; but chiefly in token of their savage admiration of his wonderful strength. He then turned his snaky, watchful eye upon the farmer, and added nonchalantly: "How do, Cory?"

"How do you do, John?” replied Cory, with an affected nasal drawl, and a look of the most intense interest, at the same time that he contrived to sidle the aborigine into a little hollow, hidden from the road by hazel thickets. “Oh, John, my pious Injun friend, hasn't the devil been mighty hard on ye, though?"

“Oh, Cory, hard like gun-barrel!” whined John, rolling up his eyes and grimacing as if words came short of the necessities of his sorrows.

"Yes, John," continued the pitiful townsman; "and I suppose that old squaw-witch, Rebecca Nurse, don't let ye alone a minute."

"Oh, Cory! witch-sachem she be," groaned John, holding both hands to his abdomen, as if the weird fingers of Good-wife Nurse were even then tearing at his vitals.

"Du tell, my yaller Christian friend,” snuffled Cory. "And you don't find nothing to draw out the pain from your inwards, I s'pose?"

"Like 'nuff sometime little cider take it out, Cory," replied John, looking very thirsty in his miseries.

"You don't say!" drawled the farmer. "But when there ain't no cider, and no chance of getting any, I reckon you suffer like all possessed, eh?"

John went right down on his knees at the very mention of such a contingency; and then, rolling paralytically onto his back, proceeded to writhe, kick, grunt, and bellow after the usual emphatic style of the afflicted; keeping up an especial outcry about the awful ferocity of Rebecca Nurse. Cory grasped the collar of his ragged coat by one hand, and with the other caught a whip which More flung to him. The next instant the little green switch quivered across the Indian's legs, extracting from him a

loud ugh! of pain and surprise. He made a convulsive spring to get up, but the farmer held him down and shouted. "Now, John, give it up. Quit your manifestations, or I'll give yer hide such an almighty tanning that it'll never feel nateral to ye again. Give it up, and come out o' that ere."

But John's eyes closed again, and he resumed his howlings. He had very nearly been tricked out of his fit; but there was yet a chance of recovering character as a truly afflicted one, and he proceeded to make the most of it by an astonishing uproar, when his mouth was gagged with a not over-clean pocket-handkerchief. The next instant the farmer turned him on his face and commenced hammering away at Mis tenderloin with the hazel switch, as regularly and composedly as if he were thrashing. More rubbed his hands in a pleasant excitement, and watched the operations of his energetic follower with a smile of cheerful approbation. Only once did he withdraw his attention from the lively spectacle, to order away some children who came hurrying up, attracted by the Indian's clamor. Cory continued the flagellation with remarkable steadiness and vigor, drawing a loud breath after every blow, and keeping his tongue out of one corner of his mouth, as some people do when they are very earnestly engaged. The only one of the trio who certainly did not enjoy the interview, was the Indian; but, although he bounced, writhed, and groaned with rather uncommon violence, even for one of the afflicted, it was all quite in character; and for some minutes he seemed determined to keep up appearances at no matter what wear and tear of leather. After taking a round two dozen, however, and finding that his inquisitor was not in the least fatigued, he concluded that it was paying too dear for the whistle. With a sudden start he leaped to his feet, freed his mouth from the handkerchief, and bellowed: "Nuff, Cory! Stop! Me no s'pose you whip all day. Goramanty! Who tell you hazel stick drive out devil?"

"Oho! That's what I've jest found out, my good pious friend," said Cory, arresting his blows, but tightening his grasp on the Indian's collar. "Now, John," he continued, in his quiet drawl, "you're goin' to lie down and take some more, jest to larn ye not to tell lies about decent people."

The Indian gave a violent spring, and, leaving the collar in Cory's hand, broke away at full speed across the common, and up Main street, yelling for assistance. Close at his heels panted the farmer, thundering along in his ponderous hobnailed shoes, and plying his switch vigorously, until the goaded and barefooted savage left him behind out of striking distance.

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Cory," said the hunter, as they walked back to their canoe, "I'm afraid you will get a commitment for this. Parris will have you arrested, if he can. If the sheriff come upon you, tell him that Henry More stood by aiding and abetting. I will make that known myself."

More reached the cabin not half an hour after Rachel had got back to it from her expedition. Did he find her carrying out her proposed plan of having a good cry over the lamentable case of her friend Martha? He did, indeed, discover her in a state of considerable emotion, downcast, flushed, and talking in a tremulous undertone. But why did she start so guiltily from her little seat under the pines when he made his sudden appearance ? And Mark Stanton, too, what was he blushing at; and what business had he to be holding her little hand; and, finally, what was he there for, when he should have been on his way home to supper? These questions very naturally occurred to Master More as he came upon the culpable couple, and detected mysteries and confusions in their tell-tale faces; but, however surprised he might have been, he said nothing, and simply stood looking at them with a quizzical air of expectation. Rachel turned crimson from her throat to her forehead, and covered her face with her apron, ready to cry if necessary. Mark was struck quite dumb for a moment, as such an unconscionable misdoer deserved to be; but in a moment, drawing all his courage from his fingers' ends, and clearing his voice, he spoke out like a man: "Master More, I've just been asking Rachel if I might talk to you, sir, about our being married whenever you-I—"; and here he broke down, having forgotten the rest of his proposed discourse.

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Well, Mark," said More, shaking the young fellow by the hand, "I've expected this for some time, though you have got along a little faster than I supposed. You rather surprised me;

but never mind; a few weeks more or less don't matter. So there's my consent (another shake); and now talk away with each other."

Rachel took down her apron, and, looking very much ashamed of herself, began to kiss her father.

The fact is," resumed Mark, "I know that perhaps I've pushed on matters a little too fast. But then all the fellows in Salem wanted her; and I was mortally afraid I should lose her."

"Never mind, lad," said More. "I understand all that. Now, then, Rachel, let go of me, and let me get away. I want to smoke my pipe."

Of course Rachel ran to fill the pipe with her own hands, and Mark ran to hold the coal for her while she lighted it, and then followed her in a trance of admiration as she carried it to her father. More seated himself under the noontide shadow of the projecting roof, and smoked in tranquil reverie. He was quite contented; the young man had pleased him all along; they should be married as soon as they chose; the remainder of his life would be passed by their fireside; thus he roved on through year after year of an imaginary future. He forgot the witches, except once, when he laughed at a sudden recollection of the cure which Cory's hazel stick had wrought upon the possessed Indian. Sickly, quiet, careful Margaret Jacobs was moving about the cabin, preparing supper; and he called to her to set a plate for Mark. Presently he rose, and summoned those two absentminded people from their idyl under the pine shadows. Mark could not stay to supper; oh, he had never thought of such a thing; he must go home, or his mother would be anxious-but the bypocrite remained, notwithstanding all his protests. I am doubtful whether his presence contributed much to Rachel's enjoyment of the meal. It is certain that she seemed rather ill at ease, looked very seldom at her father and Margaret Jacobs, and kept her eyes for the most part on her bread and butter. Perhaps she heard the katydids, who were shouting from the neighboring trees, at the very top of their shrill pipes, some provoking impertinences about "Stanton did! Stanton did!" Did he? Well, what of it? What is the use of letting the whole world know it? Can't a body kiss a body without having the fact bruited through all the forests of

New England by a coterie of chattering insects? A set of gossiping fellows, as lean as French dancing-masters, so disgracefully poor and so absurdly merry, that they will use their own shriveled legs for fiddlesticks! And then the frogs must join in, to increase the poor child's confusion, with their impertinent basso profondo of, "Keeping house! keeping house!" Oh, but it was ungentlemanly, and what I should not have expected from a harmonic society composed, I have no doubt, of the first frogs of Salem.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE whipping of Sarah Carrier by More, and the whipping of John Indian by Cory, made a great noise in the village; not that people in general were at all convinced of the fallacy of witchcraft by these successful experiments with hazel switches; on the contrary, they were only shocked or maddened at the obstinate unbelief and outrageous violence of our two sturdy floggers. Some persons, indeed, thought that More and Cory had hit upon the true secret, and that the whole excitement was a delusion, curable, at any moment, by an application of cart-whips in the right quarter. But so strongly did popular opinion set in the other direction, that these timid people said nothing, and did nothing but bend their heads like bulrushes to the dangerous current. Others imagined that there was some peculiar anti-diabolical virtue in the hazel; and supported this hypothesis by the fact that divining-rods, for the discovery of springs, were usually made of that wood. But the masses united in denouncing More and Cory as a couple of raging Sadducees, who had done nothing more than tor'ture these poor afflicted ones into a momentary denial of the truth. This was the stand taken by the leading citizens, the magistrates, and all the neighboring elders, except that benighted, helpless old Higginson.

On the day after John's flogging, Sheriff Herrick had official business at the houses of both these persecuting Herods. Cory was marched straight off to prison, on the score of being a riotous man and a defamer of the worshipful elders and magistrates. But More was too much of a gentleman to be handled thus without gloves; and

nothing was done to him at present but to bind him over in £250 to keep the peace. He brought up Deacon Bowson as security; laughed at an insinuation of stocks and pillories; and walked off with a haughty bearing which made Justice Curwin gnash in his sleeves. As if in defiance of his opponents, he resumed, with fresh vigor, the circulation of his petition. But even friends looked askance at him; not another signature could he obtain; two or three who had given him their names now withdrew them; and it was at this time that he lighted his pipe with the luckless paper. From this period, also, there was an occasional croak at him from the bands of the afflicted. As for Cory, the moment he was in prison the possessed persons found that he was one of the greatest wizards in the country; that he was on intimate terms with a black man in a high-crowned hat. and entertained familiar spirits in the shape of green snakes, yellow-birds, and mudturtles. John Indian, Tituba, and the two Parris girls, in particular, made vehement outcries against his fiendish persecutions, and for four or five days were tormented by hardly any one else. Then they fell to accusing Good-wife Cory, who, by a natural consequence, soon followed her husband to prison. Mark Stanton was called to an account by Justice Hawthorne, for talking too much about the retractions of John and Sarah, and for indulging thereon in very sarcastic and Sadduceeistic comments. "The tongue is a consuming fire, young man," said the magisterial monitor;

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see to it that it burns you not up, by your own imprudence. It is a thousand pities when a man willfully scorches himself with his own tongue. "Especially," muttered Mark, "as the tongues of our neighbors are so ready to scorch us."

Parris

Nothing had so angered the advocates of the prosecutions as those flogging adventures; nothing had spurred them up to such an energy of wrangling, such a fury of denunciation. declaimed in his sermons and in his pastoral visits against the sin of thus trying to choke the truth by violence; the devilish cruelty of thus adding to the sufferings of those who were already so tormented." What, then?" he howled. "Shall we go back because the wicked rage? O Salem, for shame! Fainthearted Salem, for shame! Will you

go backward when heaven is forward? Rather go onward, though it be painfully and laboriously, in tears and in weariness, but still onward. Do the haters of God say unto you that you do ill in thus fighting the good fight of faith? I say unto you that you do well. I say unto you, be elaborate in turning every stone of stumbling; for thus will you unearth many a toad of hell, who otherwise would remain unvisible. Shall we have pity on the toads of hell, and protect them, and take them to our bosoms? If there be any one here who says that, let him rise instantly and go out; for he is not worthy of this place. No one rises-I thank Him, who has kept this assembly pure."

No sooner had the legal action against More got wind, than Noyse was at the cabin. Did he hope that the stout hunter would be frightened now, and ready to buy the protection of an influential elder at the price of his child? Who shall blame him very bitterly? He wished fervently to make Rachel happy; and he believed sincerely that he could make her so, if he were her husband. Would it be an unworthy manner of winning her heart, to stand forward as a friend to her father in his hour of peril? Sacred band of lovers throughout earth-ye who wish that the dear object might be in danger of death, to give you a chance of saving her, and so gaining her gratitude-I am sure that ye will not fling the first stone at this unhappy and lovelorn elder.

More and Mark Stanton were setting partridge snares at a little distance from the cabin, while Margaret Jacobs had gone to the village on some errand after household implements and groceries; so that the minister was left alone for a few embarrassing minutes with Rachel. How happy he was, in spite of the timid reserve with which she avoided sitting near him! He did not understand her confusion of blushes, and almost believed that they rose from a heart agitated in like manner with his own. He noticed how she had changed since he first knew her; how her manner and expression had risen into a matured dignity; how her form had rounded and ripened into the finished loveliness of womanhood. He was more charmed than he ever had been before, and reeled on in his blinded fascination towards a full utterance of his passion. "I fear that I have enemies, Rachel," he said, with

the natural abruptness of a man who speaks under strong excitement. "Your father has some prejudice against me, though I have tried every way to be his friend. O, Rachel, you know not how I grieve at it, how I desire his good will. Will you not speak of it to him, and try to soften his heart toward me?"

"Oh, I am sure, Elder Noyse," the girl stammered, in reply" I am sure I know not what it is. I am sure my father never said he hated you. Oh, to be sure, I'll ask him if you and he cannot be friends."

"Thank you, dear Rachel," murmured the elder. "I do thank you heartily for your friendliness. But is friendliness all? Is it all, Rachel? Has your father never told you? has he not—”

He tried to take the girl's hand, but she was brave enough to withdraw it immediately; for she felt that he was driving her to extremity, and that sheer necessity ordered her to act and speak plainly. "Elder Noyse." said she "I do regard all persons with friendliness; but, as for any particular affection, I bestow it only on one-"

She had meant to say, frankly, who that one was; but, when she came to the name, she could not utter it. Still, he urged her, and tormented her, until she did tell him that it was not he, and could not be. She admitted this, turning away her head as she spoke, so as not to see the expression of his face. She had not yet looked at him, and he had not yet answered, when the feet of her father and Mark rang on the hard path which led up to the cabin. More entered, followed by Stanton; the former saluted the minister, without appearing to notice his emotion; the latter gave him a quick, observing glance, and then, with a courteous forbearance, turned to the window. "Come, little lass,” said More, "run out to the garden with your laddie, and oversee him weed the corn. He will do it; but I am not minded to let him scratch up my vegetables by mistake." Mark laughed at the humorous idea that he could, by any possibility, blunder between good maize-stalks and pig-weed. Rachel handed him a ponderous hoe, stout enough to root up an average sapling; and, making their manners to Noyse, the two young folk escaped gladly to the little rustic garden.

"Reverend, sir," said More, as soon

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